Consequences
by Sadesco
Summary: Sequel to An Unexpected Meeting Part 2 of the War Stories Saga. Sam and Dean must face the consequences of their actions after AHBL2 but they find more allies than they expected. Dean and OC pairing. Rated M for Language and Sexual Content
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – Consequences**

**A Motel Room - South Dakota**

Hannah clutched at her chest and stomach as pain ripped through her. She doubled over at the impact and dropped heavily on he knees. The pain was so intense that she almost couldn't focus on anything else. Tears welled up in her eyes as she fought to keep conscious. Dean…Dean was in danger. The impression of the eldest Winchester had never been far from her thoughts, but now it seemed to pulse like a beacon in a squall of pain and aguish.

Then a new sensation engulfed her, it crashed over her like a wave on the shore, over whelming every sense. She had nothing, no vision, no hearing not even a sense of direction only the horrifying realisation that a tidal wave of demonic energy had just rushed into this realm of existence. The voice inside her head that had been silent for two years, roared in victory, it was the last horrifying thing she heard before she lost consciousness.

* * *

**Wyoming 3:17am**

Dean lay on his back with his hands laced behind his head. He could hear Sam breathing deeply from the bed on the opposite side of the room telling him that his brother was deeply asleep, but sleep seemed to be eluding Dean.

Two days ago he had killed the yellow eyed demon, but he was having trouble finding any joy in that fact. Dean may have gotten that demon, but a whole army of new demons had been released into this world. Not only that, but he had traded away his soul to bring back Sam. He had no regrets about doing that, but the demon he had made his pact with, was going to be collecting in a year. It just wasn't enough time.

It had taken 24 years and two generations of Winchester's to have a reckoning with the Yellow Eyed Demon, how were they ever going to deal with a legion of demons in just one year.

He and Sam had stayed close to the vault researching any leads that may indicate where the Demonic forces would surface, but as yet there had been no indication and he felt the days passing like they were seconds.

Dean looked across at where Sam slept. He had been watching Sam very closely since his resurrection. He didn't want to believe the Yellow Eyed Demon, but he knew that the Sam sleeping just a short distance away, was not the same Sam he had been several days ago.

There had been nothing overt that made him think that, it was just little things, gestures, responses that pointed to a change in him. Dean had wanted to ignore these little things, and just be grateful that he had his brother back, but it was impossible, he didn't have the time to waste on fooling himself anymore.

Tired of looking at the ceiling, Dean sat up, pulled on his jeans, picked up his duffle and went outside to where his beloved Impala was parked. There was a Roadhouse a mile or so from the motel and he really needed a drink.

Dean eased the car out of the Car Park, but as soon as he hit the road, he floored it allowing the powerful Chevy engine to roar in delight at its new found freedom. It didn't take long before he saw the gaudy neon sign of the Bucking Bronco Bar.

The car park was almost empty but for a few big rigs, the odd pickup and a bike or two, so Dean parked the Impala as close as he could to the entrance and wandered on in. The bar itself was nearly as empty at the parking lot. Dean wasn't sure what he was expecting at 3am but the quiet subdued, almost melancholic feel of the bar seemed to mirror his own mood, so he inclined his head at the man behind the bar and took a seat in a shadowed booth a the back of the bar.

Dean looked around the place. The décor had been inspired by Wyoming's frontier heritage, with wagon wheels and saddles mounted on the walls, but the whole thing looked a little tired and dusty. There was a mechanical bull that sat idol in one corner of the bar and the neon Budweiser sign blinked off and on sporadically, casting a sickly red glow on the wood panelled walls.

A waitress limped over to his table. He watched her struggle on what must have been aching feet. She attempted to smile at him, but her mouth didn't quite make it and it looked more like a grimace than a smile. Dean didn't mind, he didn't have a smile in him to answer hers anyway.

"What can I get for ya?'" she said pulling a pad out of the pocket of her apron and grabbing the pen that had been strategically stuck in the hair close to her ear.

"A shot of bourbon and a beer." he said, his voice competing with the crooning country ballad that was playing on the duke box.

The waitress nodded without looking up again and shuffled off to go and fix his order. As he watched her leave, he reached into his duffle and pulled out the journal that was sitting inside. He ran his hands over the brown leather cover; he felt the embossed design around the edge with his fingers and retraced his action a couple of times because he found the sensation soothing.

Dean opened the cover and looked at the pristine white page on the top. He didn't look up as the waitress bought over his order; instead he flicked through to the only page that had writing on it. The script was big and bold, the authors handwriting beautiful.

He traced his fingers over where Hannah had signed her name. It was a single line of bold strokes and connecting loops and Dean had to smile. The signature was like the woman, strong and bold at first site, yet intricately woven on closer inspection.

He had meant to call her more than six months ago, but he and Sam had gotten caught up on their next hunt and he just hadn't gotten around to it. That didn't mean he hadn't thought of her. Lately he had thought of her often.

He had thought of her when he had found Sam dead. He remember the same horrible remorse that had engulfed him, he had felt once before through her in the memory that they both shared. It wasn't just an emotion, it had been a grief so complete that it was a physical pain, and while he had shared it with Hannah when he was in her memories, he didn't fully understand it until he had seen his own brother lying dead before him.

He had thought of her and the torment that she had endured as he bargained away his soul. He had taken comfort in the fact that she had found a way to beat her own demon. If she could, perhaps he could too.

And he thought of her now. She personified for him all the things he should have done, but hadn't. It felt like that was becoming the theme for his life, and that thought troubled him. Given that he only had a year left to live, he didn't want to live it with regret. Picking up the shot of bourbon he threw it back down his throat then quickly eased the burning sensation with a sip from his beer.

He ran his fingers over her note one last time, the flipped back to the first page, where he pulled out a pen and wrote the date on the first line. He wanted someone to remember him. He knew that he would never have any children of his own, but he didn't want his existence to just end in 363 days.

If he wrote down in his journal everything that had happened to him and everything the would happen during the year, perhaps twenty years from now someone would read it and know what they had done, how they had fought and what they had sacrificed. Then his life would mean something, he wouldn't just cease to exist. Perhaps that was a foolish notion, but it bought him a measure of comfort.

He began writing about his mother and father, the appearance of the yellow eyed demon and the fire, but he scratched out every second line, until in a fit of frustration he ripped out the page and scrunched it into a little ball, chucking it with disgust onto the dusty floor.

"That's not a good start." said an accented voice that caused Dean to look up sharply.

Dean blinked rapidly thinking he was seeing things, but a realisation struck him, his mouth dropped open in shock.

"Doc ?" he said almost disbelieving his own eyes.

Hannah smiled at him. Her hair was slightly longer and she had lost some weight off her face, but those crystal blue eyes were unmistakable. She looked so out of place in the grimy road house, her tailored pants and silk blouse more suited to some high class wine bar than some two bit, peanut shells on the floor roadhouse.

"I told you our paths would cross again." she said slipping into the seat opposite him.

Self consciously Dean slid the journal off the table and shoved it back into his duffle.

"How did you find me?" he questioned signalling for the waitress

Hannah clucked her tongue in an almost maternal admonishment. "I thought you would know better than to ask that of a psychic Dean."

He chuckle slightly and Hannah laughed subtly too.

"I'm just glad your ok." she said "I got a feeling a couple of days ago that something terrible had happened."

At her words Dean sobered, his face changing from amusement to one of intense seriousness. Hannah sensed the change in him immediately and looked at him with concern.

"Something terrible has happened." she translated from the expression on his face.

"You could say that." said Dean looking up at the arrival of the waitress.

"May I please have a coffee?" said Hannah startling the waitress with her refined voice.

The waitress looked almost alarmed, like she was suddenly in the presence of royalty and she looked at Dean for support. People like Dean she got, she saw hundreds of them in here every night, but people like this English woman, just didn't come to places like the Bucking Bronco, especially not at 4 am in the morning.

"Do you want cream and sugar?" she asked her voice cracking slightly.

Hannah gave her a reassuring smile "No thank you. Black would be lovely."

The waitress backed away from the pair like she was afraid to turn her back on them and then she hurried on aching feet to the bar to collect the mug of coffee.

Hannah turned her attention back to Dean, she clasped her hands together and leaned forward so that the overhead light illuminated the fiery sheen of her auburn hair.

"Why don't you start at the beginning." she said fixing Dean with a blue eyed stare.

Dean took a deep breath to settle his churning emotions. He hadn't had a chance to talk with anyone about the events of the last week but when he started, he found that it came pouring out of him on a tide of pent up fear and emotion. He paused only briefly when the waitress delivered the Doc's coffee and continued until he had finished everything. He kept the terms of his bargain with the demon until the end, realising that of everyone that he knew, only the Doc really had an understanding of what he had done.

Hannah's expression remained carefully blank as she listened to Dean. Not once did she interrupt him, but as he spoke of the deal he had made with the demon he waves of overwhelming regret poor off of her. He face betrayed nothing, but Dean could feel her heart sink at his revelation.

"So you see, I have one year before I make good on my agreement." he finished, watching the Doc's reaction very closely.

"Not going to happen!" she said sitting up very tall in her seat is if she was somehow bolstered up by her resolve that Dean would never have to honour that agreement.

Dean found her quiet confidence somewhat comforting but he looked at her with disbelieving eyes.

"Dean" she repeated again "We are not going to let that happen. I'm not going to let that happen."

She was so earnest in her statement, Dean found himself wanting desperately to believe her. It gave him hope that she was even here.

"I appreciate your enthusiasm Doc, but there is no way out of it."

Hannah's eyes widened as she heard his words, for a moment that looked like molten mercury.

"There is always a way Dean, there is no bargain ever struck that doesn't have some sort of loophole. At the end of the day Demons are cowards, they always hedge their bets. You know I'm right Dean, it is exactly what your yellow eyed demon did with Sam and the other chosen children. Why create one when you can created half a dozen and let the strongest emerge."

Dean shook his head slightly "I think my situation is a little different Doc."

Hannah smiled at him warmly hoping that her confidence would be infectious. Dean needed hope, he needed to not be defeated before the battle had begun.

"Maybe so, but Demons don't deal in absolutes. There will be a way, we just need to find it." Hannah paused for a minute as a new thought crossed her mind "Either that or we find something that Demon wants more than your soul."

Dean's eyes shot up from where they had been fixed on his beer. He had never considered that as a possibility. Hannah smiled a knowing smile at him as if she were already formulating a plan in her mind and Dean felt a knot of tension unfurl in his chest. He didn't even realise it was there until he felt relief from it.

"Leave that with me for a bit. I'd like to think some more on it." said Hannah with a gentle smile as she took a delicate sip from her coffee. "Now let's deal with the more immediate problem; this demonic force."

As she spoke of the evil energy that had spilled out from the gateway, Hannah's voice took on a strange quality like it caused her pain to speak of it. Dean looked at her inquisitively.

"I felt it." she explained "That's how I knew something was wrong."

Dean's attention was piqued "You felt it?" he asked unable to keep the hope from his voice "Can you still feel it? Sam and I have been here for two days and we don't have any leads."

Hannah smiled sadly at him "I felt it when it happened but I can't really feel anything discernable now."

Dean seemed to deflate somehow at the knowledge. Hannah could feel that he was eager to get in the fight because he felt the time slipping by like sand through an hourglass.

"Ok" she said reverting to the safety of her intellect. When everything else failed her, her intellect had always gotten her through. "That demonic force is effectively an army. What does any army require to fight a battle?"

Dean shrugged almost absently "A good leader, a defendable position and weapons."

Hannah looked up impressed. In his idle musing of her question, which she had intended to be largely rhetorical; Dean had put her train of thought on the right track.

"All literature on the hierarchy of demons tends to indicate that the leaders are usually the strongest – Dante's 'Divine Comedy', Milton's 'Paradise Lost' even Marlowe's 'Faust' all discuss the hierarchies of hell. All of the leaders are the most powerful but because Demons are inherently treacherous, they must constantly defend their position against usurpers. The Demons may not have surfaced yet because there may be infighting for leadership now that you have removed the yellow eyed demon."

"I guess that is possible Doc…but there is a lot of speculation going on there." said Dean, pealing the label from his empty bottle of beer.

"Yes you're right. At this stage we have no evidence. So we move onto the next thing you said."

"A defensible position?"

"I know from experience that the most defensible position that a demon can take up is safe and sound in a human being. They always feel confident when they have a human shield. We need to look out for unusual and particularly brutal murders, stories of demonic possession, people who suddenly disappear from their families."

Dean nodded "Bobby and Ellen are keeping and eye out for those sorts of signs; they said they would alert us if they found anything suspicious."

Hannah nodded approvingly. She didn't know who these people where, but if Dean trusted them to help, she had no reason to doubt his judgement.

"So that just leaves us with weapons." said Dean looking at Hannah across the table.

Hannah was deep in thought as Dean spoke, she too had gone down the list and a troubling idea had started to worm its way into her mind. As the idea formed and took root her eyes widened into something Dean could only associate with panic.

"The Grimoires"

Dean watched her. It seemed a fairly simple statement yet the look of absolute fear on Hannah's face spoke volumes.

"The Gimoires? Doc, I'm not following you, fill me in." he asked leaning forward in his seat.

"A Grimoire acts like a magnifying glass for energy. If a demon where to use a grimoire it would focus its energy through the book and become more powerful. If a powerful Demon like the Yellow Eyed Demon were to use it – there would be nothing that we could do to stop it."

Dean nodded "Ok so we pick up where you left off, we find the grimoires."

Hannah looked at him, the quiet panic still etched into her face "We don't need to find them. I know where they are. They won't waste their time on the lesser books. They'll go for the oldest and most powerful."

Dean looked at Hannah still troubled by her fearful face "Fine, where are these books?"

"At the cottage." said Hannah, her voice so quiet he nearly missed it.

There was such quiet despair on Hannah's face that Dean knew she must be right. Having a destination and a target he stood up quickly, dropping some bills on the table and grabbing his duffle.

"C'mon" he said holding his hand out to help her stand. "Let's go get Sam."

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 - Consequences**

**9:17am Cheyenne Airport - Wyoming**

Dean clutched at his boarding pass nervously. He was singularly unhappy about the prospect of getting on the flight to Denver. In his experience if men were supposed to fly, they would have been born with wings. No good could possible come from being 15 thousand feet above the ground in something that weighed more than a semi-trailer. He was even more unhappy about having to leave the Impala in the Airports security parking complex.

"I just don't see why we couldn't drive?" he whined looking between the Doc and his brother who sat oposite him in the hard plastic seats that only seem to services in airports and bus stations.

"It would have taken too long for us to get there." said Hannah reasonably

"And besides that, they have a two day head start." said Sam, his eyes shifting, watching the people who passed by with and element of suspicion.

Dean could see that the Doc was studying Sam closely. She had barely spoken to him, in fact she had barely spoken at all when they had gone to get Sam from the motel, but she had been watching him closely. Dean knew without even having to ask her, that Hannah sensed the change in him, the same way the Dean did.

"But we won't have a car when we get there or any weapons or anything." he continued, bile climbing up his throat at the thought of having to board the plane.

"I'll hire a car." said Hannah absently her eyes watching the check in desk at the activity of ground staff there.

"Hire cars aren't cars...They're tin cans on tyres."

"Dean" said Sam, his tone sharp and commanding and it bought Dean's whining up short.

Hannah looked at Sam and Dean saw a moment of worry cross her face before she hid it quickly under her usual mask of practised indifference.

The overhead PA speaker crackled to life and called to the passengers travelling to Denver. Both Hannah and Sam stood, but Dean was reluctant to get to his feet. Hannah held her hand out to him, to encourage him, and he took it standing up at the insistent tug she put on his hand. Once he was standing, Hannah looped her hand around his elbow a gesture that made Dean look down in surprise. He was unsure if she was doing that for his benefit or her own, but either way, he felt a certain comfort in the contact.

They walked together towards the check in desk and handed the smiling hostess their boarding cards, Sam following closely behind.

The hostess ran each boarding pass through a small card reader and then pointed toward the large glass doors. " If you would like to just step outside the bus will take you to your aircraft."

Dean leant over to whisper to Hannah "Bus?"

She didn't respond but smiled at him as she climbed up the stairs of the bus.

"Why is there a bus?" said Dean a growing feeling of concern spreading through him. "And why do we have to go via Denver."

"Because there wasn't a direct flight from her to Providence" said Sam sounding slightly agitated "Now would you just sit down."

Dean sat in the seat next to Hannah and Sam sat in a seat on his own on the isle. The fact that there was a bus trip in this equation was really unnerving him.

With twenty or so people on the bus, it pulled away from the terminal and headed out onto the tarmac. They passed the large United 757's that had been parked up against the terminal and were fed by enclosed gangways attached directly to the terminal. Then they passed several hangers, where large jet aircraft were covered in maintenance men that looked like ants running over a giant sneaker. Then they headed out to where there were fields of smaller aircraft. Dean watched with growing trepidation. The bus pulled up next to a smaller twin propeller aircraft, that was being refuelled out of what looked like a mini petrol tanker.

Dean looked at the aircraft with wide eyes, "You've got to be kidding me." he muttered as everyone around him stood to get off the bus.

Hannah stood and encouraged Dean to stand and get moving but he was dragging his feet. Not a lot in this world scared him, but flying was definitely on the list. For some reason he had always feared it, and his only experience in flying had nearly resulted in them crashing in a big fiery ball. When his feet hit the tarmac the Doc again looped her arm through his and began to walk towards the metal stairs that lead up into the aircraft.

Dean began to sweat. His stomach rolled uncontrollably and if he didn't have as much pride, he would have lost his breakfast right there on the tarmac.

"No funking way." he said stopping short of the first step. But before he could turn, he felt to Doc pull on his arm and Sam place a hand on his other shoulder and both began forcing him towards the stairs.

"Suck it up, soldier." hissed Hannah, in a tone more reminiscent of an order, and on instinct Dean ceased struggling and walked towards the stairs. Both Hannah and Sam climbed the stairs behind him, so there would be no retreating from this situation.

A hostess greeted him at the door and took his boarding pass out of his hand. He smiled in spite of the churning that was going on in his stomach and when she pointed out his seat he walked in the direction. He froze in front of their assigned seats clutching his duffle close to his chest. Hannah put her hand on his forearm and tried to push a sense of calm on to him. He looked at her and smiled, his smile was tight be she could see that he at least felt that she was trying hard to help him.

Dean tossed his duffle in the overhead locker and slid into the seat next to the window. Hannah sat down beside him and Sam was in a single seat on the other side of the aisle. The plain was small so Sam waited until the ailse was clear to stretch his long legs out into it.

Dean struggled with his belt until Hannah covered his hands with her own and assisted him in getting the two metal parts together. He smiled again at her nervously and she returned his smile. He wondered how she could remain so calm.

They sat in silence as the final passengers were boarded and the door closed, but when the propellers started to gear up, Dean nearly leapt out of his seat. Hannah put her hand over Dean's where it gripped the arm of the seat in a white knuckled fist. He felt waves of calm and reassurance flow through him, it did battle with his instinctual fear and that is how he knew that it was coming from her and not from within himself. Dean looked over to her, but her attention was fixed to the front of the aircraft where the hostess was going through the safety procedures.

How was it, that he didn't baulk from making a deal with his immortal soul, but one little plane trip had him tying himself in knots. He suddenly felt embarrassed, he must look ridiculous to the Doc, he would have snatched his hand away from hers, but he needed the reassurance that the contact gave him. That in itself sickened him further.

Hannah turned to look at him her eyes a piercing blue her face a mask of passiveness "Dean, stop it." she said quietly a slight tone of disappointment touching her words.

"You stop it." he muttered back, appalled that she may have picked up on the arse kicking that he was giving himself in his head. "And get out of my head." he added for good measure.

"I'm not in your head." Hannah replied calmly "You're broadcasting like CNN over there."

Heat rose to Dean's cheeks but his embarrassment was quickly replace with terror at the plan began to taxi towards the runway. Everything on the tiny plan seemed to move. The wings bounced up and down flexing and contracting with every bump and lump on the tarmac. The Propellers seemed to cut through the air, but as soon as the plane changed direction, the sounds of the propellers would change as wind and airflow moved across them differently. The tiny plane lined itself up on the tarmac and Dean let his head fall back against the seat keeping a wary eye on the ground he could see out of his window seat. As the plane began to pick up speed Dean shut his eyes clenching them tightly and gripping the seat until he lost feeling in his hands.

**

* * *

****10:06am Denver Airport – Colorado**

"Dean." whispered Hannah close to his ear "Dean, wake up. We're here."

Dean's eyes flew open and he looked around slightly shocked. "What the …" he muttered as he looked around the cabin.

"Was something wrong." he asked looking around the cabin and then out the window at the airport that was looming large in the small portal.

"What do you mean?" asked Hannah trying to straighten the creases from her pants.

"Why are we going back to the terminal?" he asked looking towards the hostess for any signs of trouble.

"No, we're in Denver." said Hannah looking at Dean quizzically.

"What?" questioned Dean nearly chocking on the words.

"We're in Denver." she said again this time watching him closely for his reaction like he may have finally lost the plot.

"What, how could we be in Denver, we haven't even taken off yet."

Hannah's lips curled in an amused smile "Dean you nodded off while we were taking off in Cheyenne and you slept all the way through the flight and even the landing."

"I slept?" questioned Dean, seeming stunned by the prospect. He turned suspicious eyes onto Hannah "What did you do?"

"Me?" she said looking slightly hurt at the accusation. "I didn't do anything! I just figured you must have been exhausted from staying up all night in that roadhouse."

Dean continued to scrutinise her, but she seemed so genuinely hurt by his accusation that he began to doubt that she may have had anything to do with it. Maybe she was right, maybe he was just exhausted.

When everyone in the cabin made to move, he too stood and pulled his duffle out of the overhead locker.

"We'll have to hurry." said Hannah to the boys "Or we'll miss our connecting flight."

"Great" muttered Dean through his teeth "We get to do this all over again."

Again a bus took them to the terminal, where they hurried through to a transfer lounge and checked in to there connecting flight to Providence. Dean thought he would be better flying in a larger Boeing than he had been with the smaller twin prop, but as he walked down the gang plank to the entrance of the plane, he felt the familiar churning of his fear.

He said nothing as they boarded, not wanting to embarrass himself twice in one day, and as this was a much longer flight he asked if he could sit near the aisle. Hannah let Sam in next to the window seat and then took the middle seat for herself as Dean slid into the seat closest to the end.

Again the ritual emergency procedures where gone through and as he watched, Dean tried to control his growing fear, but was fighting a loosing battle. Hannah covered his hand with her own, never looking directly at him, but her presence always there. As the plan began to taxi, Dean felt his eyes growing heavy. He rested his head against the seat and before he knew it he was out like a light.

As he fell asleep, Dean's head fell on Hannah's shoulder where it sat as he slept quietly.

"Are you sure you should be doing that." said Sam looking across at the easy slumber of his brother then at the woman who he was sure was inducing it.

"Probably not." said Hannah "But he would have wasted so much energy worrying about flying that if we come across anything bad at the cottage, he might not be up for the fight."

Sam didn't argue he just turned his attention out the window. Hannah watched him, felt him pull his energy away from her. There was something hard in him now. It hadn't been there when they first met, in fact of the two brothers Sam had been the open one. Not exactly innocent, but full of hope and an innate kindness. That seemed different as if it had been tainted some how by his resurrection.

They didn't speak during the flight, Sam keeping his eye fixed out the window and Hannah absently massaging Dean's hand where it was curled around her own. She thought on what they would find when they got to the cottage, and she prayed that all of her precautions had protected the grimoires, if they were too late, this war might already be lost.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**6:06pm Providence Airport – Rhode Island**

"Twice Doc! That's not a coincidence" yelled Dean as he stormed with thunderous steps down the gangway from the aircraft "I'm beginning to feel like Mr T in the A team. I pity the fool who tries that shit on me again. I pity the fool!"

Hannah walked stoically behind Dean watching his tirade. She usually didn't try and affect anyone else's behaviour. On normal occasions she felt it was somewhat unethical to do it, and her abilities were so unstable that on the occasions where she had tried, it only worked 50 percent of the time, but she felt completely unrepentant about giving Dean the mental push he needed to go to sleep. She knew that he hadn't slept well since their night at the vault and if they were about to face a legion of demons, then he would need to be clear headed and on his game.

Sam kept pace with Hannah, but he removed himself from her slightly. She could feel that he was keeping his energy very closely bound to him, to her it felt like a coiled snake waiting to strike and it gave her an overwhelming feeling of unease. Sam had always been gifted, she had seen that immediately when they had first met, but something had changed in him. Like hers, his talents had always been sporadic, coming to him unbidden. Hannah had spent many hours practising, experimenting, trying to train herself and her abilities. They weren't what anyone could consider reliable, but she had a certain amount of control. Perhaps she could impart what she had learned to Sam. Help him hone the energy that she could feel coursing through him.

When they arrived at the luggage carousel, it was already in motion, circulating bags. Dean grabbed his own and dropped it at Sam's feet, then he pulled off Sam's pack and the case that belonged to the Doc, still muttering to himself at the hideous treatment that he had been forced to endure. Without relinquishing the Doc's case, he picked up his own bag and slung it over his shoulder and headed towards the rental car desk.

"We need a car." he said to the annoyingly cheery man sitting behind the desk "Something that isn't too dicky."

"Actually" said Hannah reaching into her purse "We have a car booked under the name Riordan. I have the booking number here."

With that she handed over the note to the man at the counter and he nodded agreeably as he took the paper.

"When did you do that?" asked Dean looking at Hannah in surprise "Oh now wait, don't tell me. It was when I was asleep right?" he hissed, putting emphasis on the sleeping part.

Hannah just looked at him without changing her expression. "I made the reservation in Wyoming, while you were getting the plane tickets."

"I'll bet you got some crappy Lincoln or Buick or something." he muttered looking at Sam who was being strangely conspicuous in his silence.

"As long as it gets us from A to B, Dean it will be fine." Hannah said reasonably.

The attendant behind the desk looked up at Hannah and asked "Would you like additional rental insurance for and extra $35"

Hannah looked at the brothers "Would we?"

Without exchanging even so much as a look, both brothers smiled a wicked smile and answered in unison "Definitely"

Hannah shrugged slightly and nodded to the attendant who smiled and began processing the paperwork.

"If you'll just sign here please Ms Riordan, I'll go get you your keys."

Hannah put her looping signature on the bottom of the form and took the keys from the attendant with a small smile and a nod of her head.

"The cars are in the parking lot straight out these double doors" said the attendant pointing to the large sliding doors "Yours is the red one, third on the left as you exit."

Hannah thanked him and headed out towards the parking lot with the two Winchesters in toe. It was just after 6pm when they landed and night was beginning to fall. They walked into the car park and Hannah counted the car spaces until she was standing in front of a red Chevrolet Silverado truck.

"Here we are." she said pressing on the central locking so that the indicator lights flashed at her.

"You're shitting me." said Dean looking at the truck with wide eyed surprise and just a hint of delight.

"I figured we might need the room" said Hannah with a cheeky smile.

Sam shrugged and walked along the side of the truck to dump his bag on the flatbed. Dean followed his lead on the opposite side of the car and looked at Hannah hopefully.

"I'm driving." he stated

"You don't even know where you're going?" said Hannah as she made to get in the drivers door.

"So!" protested Dean "You can give me directions."

Hannah was just happy that he had found something new to focus his attention on, that didn't have anything to do with flying or a little assisted sleeping. She held up the keys and he pulled them out of her hand with gusto. He squeezed passed her to the drivers door, pushing her body hard into the side of the truck. He hadn't meant to press himself into her so intimately, but in his haste to get to the drivers door he had just pushed his body by hers. Through his jeans, he felt the soft swell of her bottom press into him and his body reacted on instinct at their proximity.

Dean hurried past and slid into the driver's seat to try and hide from her his body's reaction to their brief contact. Hannah looked across the truck to where Sam waited patiently.

"Sam, your legs a miles longer than mine, you take the front seat and I'll sit in the back and navigate."

Sam shrugged at Hannah's words and folded his tall frame into the cab of the truck.

Hannah climbed in, settling herself in the middle of the seat so that she could look out the front window between the two brothers. Dean started the truck and the growl of the powerful engine put a smile on his face.

"Not too shabby I hope?" said Hannah with an air of satisfaction

"Not too shabby at all Doc." replied Dean as he pulled out of the car park with tyre squealing ferocity.

"We'll need weapons." said Sam as they pulled out onto the main road leading into the heart of Providence.

"I rang ahead to my grounds keeper. If we stop by his boatshed on the way he'll have something for us." said Hannah

Dean looked at her in the rear view mirror "You have a grounds keeper?"

Hannah nodded slightly "I'm not at the cottage very often, so I need someone to take care of it."

"Isn't he somewhat suspicious that you would ask him for a whole bunch of weapons?" asked Sam in a strangely flat voice

"While he doesn't know the details, he knows that I deal in some extremely dangerous things." explained Hannah "He's an ex-marine so he understands when to ask questions and when to shut up and do what he's told. That's why I hired him."

"And you trust him?" asked Sam starring out the window at the headlights of the cars going in the opposite direction.

"He's one of the few people I do trust." she said simply

Before they hit the central district of Providence, Hannah directed them onto a freeway that took them out towards the outlying suburbs. Her cottage was on the cost in the up market suburb of Newport. Newport was on an island connected to the mainland by a large network of bridges, it took an hour for them to reach the Narrgansett Bay bridge and then another fifteen minutes to the Newport Island Bridge.

The town of Newport, in daylight would have been postcard perfect. Even at night the quaint little seaside town had been decorated with warm coach style lamps and all the trees along the main road through town had been decorated with tiny blinking fairy lights. The town looked like it belonged back in the last century, each of the buildings having been painstakingly restored to their original glory.

As Dean drove he looked out into the dark Atlantic Ocean, the reflection of the three quarter moon, turning the dark liquid silver in places.

"Follow this road along the cost. We'll come to Adam's boat house in about half a mile or so." Hannah leaned forward resting her forearms on the two front seats.

As Dean drove, the coast line became slightly more rugged, the density of the houses began to diminish until all he could see was large Victorian style houses built up on the high side of the land facing out over the ocean. Dean rounded the bend and saw a cove that was sheltered slightly by a headland the stuck out like a pointing finger into the ocean. In the cove tiny lights marked where the boat house was, but it was the only building in the immediate area. Dean headed straight for it.

As the truck pulled up, both Sam and Dean realised that the 'Boat House' was more an impressive house that happened to be down by the ocean side. It was built on the low side of the road, but it was still some distance away from the ocean, probably to protect it from the massive swells that could sometimes hit the islands coast. A long walkway lead down to a true boatshed that sat over a pier. Several boats were docked by the peer and on the opposite side of the cove; there was a large wooden structure where fishing boats had been moored against a jetty that seemed to stretch out into the cove as far as it dared.

A tall silver haired man, waited by the front of the house, a gun resting in his arms as he watched the truck pull up. Hannah slid out of the back of the truck quickly to identify them and as soon as he saw her, he visibly relaxed and leaned the rifle against the door jam.

"Adam, how've you been?" said Hannah moving quickly to embrace the older man.

"Worried." he replied in his whisky hardened voice.

Dean and Sam had slid out of the truck and quietly moved in behind Hannah, the older man turned cold hard eyes on them, and Dean had to quell the instinct to flinch under the man's scrutiny.

"Adam, this is Sam and Dean Winchester." Hannah introduced standing back so that all three men could meet.

A long moment went by where each man sized up the other. In a way this man remained both Sam and Dean of their father. He had the same flinty hard edge about him. The constant weariness that only combat could give a man. He was probably in his early 60's, but his back was still straight and his eyes still keen.

"Please to meet you, sir." said Sam holding out his hand "I'm Sam."

Adam paused only a moment before taking it "I'm no sir, I worked for a living son." he said in a voice that seemed to begin in his chest and rattle out through a ravaged set of vocal chords.

Dean followed Sam's lead, but couldn't help smiling at this abrasive older man. He was like a caricature of every American hard arse that Dean had ever seen, a strange blend of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne.

Adam gave Dean's hand a firm squeeze and seemed to size him up as her shook it. Dean tried to make sure that he exerted as much pressure on the other man's hand as he received. This was the man's way of testing the Winchesters worth and Dean would not be found wanting.

"I have what you asked for here." he said going in through the door of his house and picking up two military green duffle bags. "Will this do?" he said handing each Winchester a bag.

Dean opened the bag and looked inside. Each bag held and array of hand guns, shot guns and rifles. There was also a string of grenades, smoke bombs even a claymore and enough ammunition to keep each weapon firing for quite some time.

"Jesus." The word slipped out of Dean's mouth before his internal filters checked him.

"I also got you a rifle." said Adam to Hannah "And I bought the General Store out of salt. Rock salt, table salt you name it. I told Eve I was smoking my own fish. I think she bought it, but if you need some more I'll go up to Tiverton in the morning."

Hannah nodded taking the case and the box of supplies out of his hands. "How is the house?" she asked turning to the house that could just be made out on the outcropping of land that made up the headland.

"There were lights up there last night. I didn't think anything of it, you know, just tourists or something, but when you called this morning I went up and check, someone had definitely tried to get in."

Hannah looked sharply to Dean and then to Sam as if all of her worst fears had just been confirmed.

"I wish you'd tell me what is going on." said Adam, feeling the tension of the people standing on his porch rise sharply. "I could help Hannah, you know I could."

Hannah turned gentle eyes to the older man "I don't doubt that Adam, not at all, but your the Calvary. You're the guy I'll call if we get into trouble. I don't want to have to involve you unless it is absolutely necessary. Once you're involved there is no backing out, no reprieve, no safe haven. You'll be in it up to your neck. I wouldn't wish that on my enemies let alone one of my only friends"

The older man's face looked troubled, but he nodded his understanding to her.

"I'll check in tomorrow morning alright?" she said trying desperately to assuage his fears.

The trio climbed back into the truck, carefully arming themselves from the weapons store that Adam had given them.

"Follow the road here" instructed Hannah pointing the road as it wound up the bluff.

Mid way up the hill Dean pulled the truck off the road "We go on foot from here. Surprise might be all that we have." he said looking between his brother and Hannah.

Sam was quiet, his eye focused on the house, he slipped a revolver into the waistband of his jeans and a couple of clips into his back pocket. Hannah opened the case that Adam had given her and with efficiency she put together the rifle. It had a snipers scope on it, but as she had never been trained to use it, it acted more as a hindrance to her than a help. Her entire weapons training consisted of clay shooting on her parents estate and a thirty second briefing on the use of hand guns that Dean had given her the last time they had been together, but she had some hidden talents that she knew would come in handy.

Dean too armed himself and slid from the cab of the truck.

"Stay behind Sam and I." he said to Hannah as he watched her slip a hand gun into her belt. He hated the fact that the Colt was tucked safely away in the trunk of the Impala. There was no way they could possibly have taken it on the plane with them, but Dean suddenly missed the feel of it. He had a grave feeling that they were going to be in need of it before the night was out.

They jogged up the hill keeping close to the road so as not to loose their way in the dark. A long drive way lead from the road to the house on the headland and Dean stopped to study it. There were recent tyre tracks on it, but Adam had said that he had been up there recently. They moved quickly but silently down the driveway until a large iron arch set in two sand stone pillars loomed over the driveway. Bush and sea scrub surrounded the entrance to the property on all sides creating any number of places for and enemy to hide for an ambush.

Dean felt tense coiled tight like a spring. His eyes darted from the road to the scrub looking for any signs of movement. Sam stayed close behind him covering his back until he spotted the large archway over the driveway. It was wrought iron, made by a master craftsman, a design that twisted and turned intricately platted between the two heavy iron arches that framed it. Sam stopped, straightened, looking at the archway; it seemed to almost hum to him in the quiet of the evening. He felt it as if it vibrated and he knew something was different about it.

Dean had moved off unaware that Sam was no longer at his back, but Hannah caught up with Sam and stood next to him, covering his back as he stood almost fixated by the large iron arch.

"This feels wrong" he whispered to no one in particular, but Hannah looked up at him sharply.

"It's a ward" she said studying his response. "I had is put in specifically. It goes with the inscription in the ground."

Sam took a few steps forward his eyes studying the concrete of the driveway. Sure enough he came across small tiles embedded in the concrete that created a circle under the arch. The tiles spelled out writing he didn't recognise, but her felt the energy pulsing through it.

Dean looked around suddenly aware that he was now on his own. He looked back over his shoulder to see his brother transfixed by something embedded in the road and Hannah studying Sam with a growing look of horror on her face. He jogged back to them.

"Hey you guys." he said he voice agitated "We're trying to make a stealthy entrance here and you standing out in the open is making this a little bit more difficult."

"Don't you feel it?" said Sam looking at his brother his eyes going wide.

"Feel what Sammy?" answered Dean "What are you talking about? What is he talking about?" he asked of Hannah realising that Sam wasn't even listening.

"This is a ward...magical fortification that I had put in to protect the grimoires. Anyone who intends harm can't generally cross it. It's like a permanent salt line."

Dean looked at his brother helplessly, the last words he heard his father utter to him running through his mind. 'One day you may have to kill Sammy.'

"I can't cross this Dean. I don't think I can cross this?" Sam looked desperate, his eyes looking suddenly young and incredibly vulnerable

"What are you talking about Sam, of course you can cross this. It's just like the salt line." Dean tried to make his voice relaxed and easy but his insides were churning.

Hannah grabbed on to Sam's wrist but the younger Winchester snatched it away almost snarling at her. Dean looked at Hannah horrified by his brother reactions.

"Sam, I'm just trying to help you. Just tell me what you are feeling?" she said calmly

Sam bought the shot gun up to point it at her, he shifted his feet nervously from side to side. "What have you done?" he said in a low growl "What have you done to me?"

"Whoa!" said Dean holding up his hands pleading for calm "Whoa, Sammy, just calm down. We're all on the same side here."

Sam glanced at him sideways "You sure about that?" he said aiming the gun directly at Hannah. He was only a few feet away; at that distance she would have no chance of survival.

"Sam you're like me." she said calmly her eyes holding more sadness than fear in them "You can feel it, feel the flow of energy. There is like a heat that radiates off it that you think will burn, but it won't Sam. It won't burn you...you have to trust me."

Sam almost shook with the effort to contain his growing agitation.

"Listen to her Sam. You'll be fine, you don't want to harm anyone right?" pleaded Dean trying to edge closer to his brother, he hoped that if he could get close enough that he could somehow get the gun away from Sam.

Hannah very calmly took a deep breath letting her eyes close as she exhaled into the night air, as she opened her eyes; they were no longer blue but a molten mercury swirling. In the darkness surrounding them her eyes seemed to give off an unnatural glow that attracted everyone's attention.

Sam looked down the gun, but his face began to screw up in concentration as he felt a pressure at the side of his head. The pressure steadily increased until it was bordering on pain. He dropped the gun and bought his hand quickly up to his temples his eyes never leaving the Doc's.

"He's dropped the gun Doc, you can stop now." said Dean holding up his hands again in a request for calm. He didn't realise that Hannah couldn't stop. Sam had felt the Doc trying to knock him out and he had thrown up his own defences, then he had countered with an attack of his own. They were now locked in a struggle of wills that Dean had no way of understanding.

Sam narrowed his focus, so that he didn't hear his brothers voice, he didn't sense the energy pulsing through the ward, he only saw Hannah, as his focus narrowed his eyes changed from their warm brown to a molten amber shifting and swirling with energy. He didn't hear Dean's gasp of surprise or the Doc's subtle grunt of exertion he only knew he had to destroy the threat to him.

Hannah had started off with a gentle push on Sam's mind, but as soon as she felt his defences come up, she had to reassert her energy, narrowing her focus down on him. She felt the moment when his self preservation instinct kicked in and the resulting psychic counter attack back at her.

Her head ached, she felt blood trickle out from her nose, but she refused to bend to Sam's will, reflecting every ounce of energy that he threw at her. She realised, that he was many times more powerful that she had ever imagined, but his abilities were raw and unfocussed. She felt his assault waver just slightly and doubled her attack.

Sam's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell, being caught by his brother before he hit the ground.

"Damn it Doc." hissed Dean "What did you do?" He eased his brothers body down to the ground.

"I was just trying to disarm him." said Hannah wiping her hand across her bloodied nose " He fought back." She was on her knees panting to regain her breath. That level of psychic activity drained the body of energy and she had to fight the instinct just to slip into unconsciousness.

"You could have gone easy on him." protested Dean, pushing the hair away from his brother face.

"Dean if I had let up." Hannah replied calmly "Sam wouldn't have stopped until he had killed me."

"That's Bullshit." said Dean with more venom than he intended "Sam isn't a killer."

Hannah remained silent. She really didn't want to get into this conversation right now when they were still in danger.

"Let's just get him to the house Dean, we're still in danger out here like this." she said, her voice sounding alarmingly weak to her own ears.

Dean was fuming. He didn't understand Sam's reaction to the ward, he couldn't believe that his brother had drawn a gun on Hannah and he certainly wouldn't accept that his brother would have ultimately killed her.

"We are not going to hurt him by bringing him across this thing?" asked Dean, slinging Sam's arm over his shoulder.

Hannah stood on the other side of Sam draping the big man's arm across her own shoulder.

"I don't believe so." she said earnestly

"You don't believe so or it won't Doc?" pressed Dean, unwilling to see his brother hurt anymore than he already was.

"Honestly, I don't know." replied Hannah for the first time that evening her voice loosing its usual air of calm.

Dean sighed heavily and began walking towards the house, half dragging his brother. Sam stirred as they walked across the ward, but he didn't regain consciousness. As they got closer to the house something stirred in the shadows. Dean let Sam's unconscious form drop to the ground and drew the shotgun he carried up in one fluid motion. He was aware of Hannah doing the same with the rifle that she carried.

"Freeze" said Dean as he tried to search the shadows for the source of the movement.

An evil cackle filled the night and Dean and Hannah exchanged knowing looks. That kind of laughter could never come from a human.

"Cover me." said Hannah and before Dean could argue she had hurried up to the porch and switched on the porch light. With the new influx of light Dean retrained his gun on the newly identified target.

A man stood on the porch, he was a young man barely out of his teens, but his face was contorted in a leer unnatural to the young features it was manipulating. The man had dark circles under his eyes and white foam frothed from his lips.

Hannah gasped and stumbled back two steps at the sight of the young man as he clawed at her, but didn't move towards her.

"Hannah?" questioned Dean placing himself in between his brother and the thing writhing on Hannah's porch.

"There's a devil's trap carved into the underside of the porch, he's trapped." she said her disgust changing now to intrigued observation.

As she walked around the man studying him, he hissed and spat in her direction but made no move towards her. Clicking his tongue in a childish taunt it spoke in a voice no human could create. The words slipped out on foaming spittle but it was in a language that Dean recognised by could not understand. Hannah was listening intently.

"Doc?" questioned Dean as he watched her studying this thing that had at one time been a man.

"He's resighting a passage from the Odyssey, where the crew turn on each other and nearly tear each other apart through their in fighting." Hannah pulled herself up to her full height "Latin, you dumb bastard, anyone can say it in Latin. If you had any kind of sense or class you would have given it to me in Greek."

Dean looked at Hannah out of the corner of his eye, surprised at the venom and contempt that she carried in her voice as she threw back her taunt.

Again the creature spoke, it carried laughter in its voice and while Dean didn't understand the words it spoke, he could tell by its tone that it was continuing to bate the Doc. Hannah's face changed from one of smug confidence to one of pure pale panic. She straightened and her hand went to her throat almost in a defensive posture.

"Doc?" asked Dean warily, aware of Sam starting to stir at his feet. He didn't look down at his brother, watching instead the woman who he feared was about to do something foolish. "Come on Doc. Talk to me!"

"He's talking about my brother." said Hannah, her voice coming out strangely calm in comparison the fury that was playing across her face. Her eyes had begun to burn silver again, but she remained still, seeming to put all of her focus on the creature that was trapped on the porch before her.

"They lie Doc." said Dean rapidly trying to regain control of the situation "It is just trying to trick you in to making some kind of mistake."

Hannah never took her eyes off the creature, but to Dean's relief, he saw her body loos some of the tension that it had been carrying.

The creature sensed that it was loosing its hold on her and continued to spit taunts at her. Dean couldn't make any of them out, but he imagined that they were growing in intensity. The Doc, however, wasn't falling for them a second time. She appeared to have really taken Dean's words to heart and realised that the Demon was taunting her out of desperation.

Hannah looked over at the older Winchester, the storm in her eyes beginning to calm. "Thank you." she said in a near whisper, but Dean heard it none the less. She gave him a quick smile, indicating that she had an idea and he nodded slightly to let her know that he would back her in whatever she did.

Hannah closed her eyes and began speaking in Latin, a short phrase that she repeated over and over again. Dean recognised the phrase even when he didn't understand each of the words. It was from the rites of exorcism and it demanded that the creature identify itself. Hannah's voice started out soft and began to increase in volume. As she spoke, the young man's body shuddered and convulsed slightly and the creature within him hissed in displeasure.

Hannah opened her eyes, smiling as the creature felt the full impact of her words.

"We can keep this up all evening." taunted Dean in a whimsical voice "Why don't you give it up buddy. What's in a name anyway?"

The creature turned hate filled eyes on Dean, but within moments those eyes were rolling back and it howled in pain.

"_Ego exisisto sicut Anane_" it managed through gritted teeth.

Hannah halted suddenly, her eyes narrowing.

"You're lying!" she said with conviction "your grammar is worse than a prep school student. Now stop messing around and give me your true name!"

Again Hannah began chanting, her tone becoming insistent. It left her lips in a steady cadence and was clearly causing the creature immense pain.

"_Je ne me trouve pas_" it wailed "_Je m'appelle Anane!_"

"In English" demanded Dean, feeling slightly left out of the proceedings.

"Anane" it cried again over the top of the Doc's chanting "I am called Anane."

The Doc halted her chanting so suddenly that it drew Dean's eye. "Talk to me Doc. That name means something to you doesn't it?"

Hannah looked at Dean her eyes giving him every indication that indeed she did know that name.

"Anane was one of the fallen. He was listed in one of the earliest chapters of the book on Enoch."

"Not was, my dear." hissed the creature, rubbing its hands together in a twisted display of delight "is."

"You're a herald a harbinger for the legions." she said her voice icy with rage "Who do you serve?"

The creature looked between her and Dean. "I serve who I always serve…myself."

"Of that I have no doubt. Now tell me who you serve?" she spat back at it.

"Why?" it said leering back at her "What could you possibly do to me if I don't tell you?"

"We might not banish your arse back to hell?" said Dean looking at the malevolence on the creatures face. He had to keep reminding himself that there was an innocent man under there, who was probably living his worst nightmare as they exchanged words.

The creature looked at Dean smiling "Now who is lying?"

"You're right. I am going to exorcise your sorry arse, but you know as well as I do" said Hannah, the muscle shifting in her jaw as she spoke through clenched teeth. "That there is the easy way and the hard way. If you don't tell us what we need to know, I'll make certain it is the hard way and it takes a really long time!"

The creature looked disbelievingly at Hannah, simply smiling to push her tolerance. She returned its smile, but her face held little humour, just a grim determination that even sent a chill down Dean's spine.

Hannah moved off the porch, close to Dean so that the creature could not hear them converse.

"What are you planning?" questioned Dean as Hannah moved in close to him.

"I am going to exorcise this Demon, but I need for you to keep asking it questions. Remember everything that it tells you. Half of it will be truth and half will be lies, but you need to remember everything."

Dean looked at her, the steady determination that filled her face. "Will this hurt the man?" he asked and when Hannah looked away without answering he knew without doubt that it would.

"Doc there is an innocent man still in there." he said grabbing onto her arm to prevent her from walking away from him.

Hannah looked up into Dean's hazel eye, pleading with her own that he understand what she had to do here.

"I know that Dean." she said quietly "But all of his suffering will have been in vein if we don't get this information out of that creature."

"Could this kill him?" asked Dean, his gut twisting painfully.

"Yes. If the Demon fights hard enough it can sometime kill the host."

Hannah's voice was entirely too calm and remote for Dean's liking, he looked off into the darkness unable to hide the disgust from his face. Necessity had lead him to kill in the past, but it had always been in the heat of the moment, always been a life or death choices. What the Doc was proposing seemed all too deliberate for his liking.

"I'm sorry" said Hannah, even though her emotionless tone belied her words "We are at war now Dean, and one of the greatest tragedies of war is the death of innocent bystanders. It is a necessary evil."

Dean turned his eyes back to Hannah, wishing desperately that Sam was conscious so that he could throw in his thoughts. Sam was always a really good balance to Dean, tempering Dean responses with both logic and humanity. The Doc just seemed way to cool and removed from this.

"I thought we were supposed to be fighting against evil Doc." hissed Dean, but his tone told her that he had relented to her argument and would support her in whatever action she took.

Hannah gripped on to Dean's forearm briefly a physical reminder of their solidarity and then she began to speak. Dean had recognised the Latin earlier, but the Doc had chosen another language now. This one was completely foreign to him and he watched what affect it had on the creature on the porch.

As Dean suspected, upon hearing the words the Doc spoke, it straightened, its face draining of colour. It looked around in a desperate display of panic and then it began testing the boundaries of the devils trap running at the invisible barriers that kept it in place.

Hannah had closed her eyes and closed her ears off to everything. She put 100 percent of her focus into the rites of exorcism and did not risk wavering for anything. The creature began writhing and lacerations appeared on the young man's arms as if something inside was trying to claw it's way out.

A blood curdling yowl echoed through the night and the creature began to convulse violently. Dean had been so surprised by the reaction of the creature that he had almost forgotten his role in this whole proceeding, but he quickly composed himself and started firing off questions.

"Who are you working for?" yelled Dean, just loud enough to be heard over the Doc's chanting.

"Go fuck yourself." the Demon replied it's head swinging from side to side as blood poured out of the young man's nose and tear ducts.

"Who do you work for?" Dean repeated again, this time his tone more forceful. They had started down this track and Dean knew he had to be committed to it, or it would never work.

"Your father….I'm working for you father." yelled the Demon, fighting to hold the body it was possessing still, so that it could look Dean in the eye.

Hannah must have heard the Demon's response and felt Dean's hesitation because her voice increased in volume, pronouncing each syllable clearly and succinctly. The Demon began gnashing it's teeth and wailing uncontrollably almost to the point where Hannah could not be heard over the din.

The Demon dropped to his knees clutching at the hair at its temple and pulling great fistfuls out. It bled from its eyes and nose, even a thin trail of blood trickled out of its ears. Blood and puss leaked out of the wounds on its arms and a stain on the t-shirt indicated that there were marks across the young man's chest too. Finally it reached for the sky.

"Help me Asbeel" it pleaded but the words were almost lost as a roar of energy tore the demonic creature from the young man's body. Dark energy looking not unlike black oily smoke was pulled from the young mans, mouth nose and ears. It swirled for a moment above his head and then dissipated with a crack that sounded like thunder.

Dean watched in horror as the young man's limp body finally fell to the porch. Next to him, the Doc swooned, loosing consciousness and dropping to the dirt next to Sam. Dean looked around at the bodies at his feet.

"Great!" he muttered "First I'm the one who's out cold and now I'm the only one awake. Way to make a guy feel included people!"

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**9:17pm Newport – Rhode Island**

Hannah felt something soft against her cheek. It was in stark contrast to the pounding pain behind her eyes.

"Doc" whispered Dean as brushed the hair out of her face. "Doc, can you hear me?"

Hannah let her eyes open, despite every instinct to keep them closed. The first thing she saw was Dean leaning over her, his eyes were wary and filled with concern.

"Dean?" she managed to say and at the sound of his name he smiled down at her.

"Welcome back." He said putting an arm under her back and helping her sit up. "I'm glad you're conscious because I was beginning to get a little lonely."

Hannah looked around and saw that Dean had checked on his brother and the young man the Demon had tormented.

"Is he alive?" she asked the words feeling like razors in her throat.

"Yes he is, but some of those wounds on his body are pretty deep. I'm going to need your help patching him up. Although that might be tricky sitting out here on the porch"

Hannah tapped at her coat pockets for the telltale jingle of her keys and reaching into her right pocket she pulled them out and handed them to Dean.

"Now that's what I was after. How'd you know Doc? Let me guess…. you're psychic" he said with an element of sarcasm.

Hannah just smiled at Dean; she knew that he had been worried for the safety of his brother and her. His outbursts of sarcasm, was what he used to deal with his fear.

Pulling the handgun out of his pants pocket he carefully opened the front door and did a quick sweep of the house, checking the rooms before he bought anyone else inside.

Hannah watched as the lights in each room steadily came on, and when they were finally all on, she pushed herself up on shaking legs and walked over to the young man on her porch.

Dean had pulled his shirt off and had torn strips off it to tie as tourniquets around the wounds on the man's arms. The looked ragged and bloody, but as Hannah studied then closer, they were not as deep as they first appeared.

She then turned her attention to Sam who was still unconscious; she walked over to him, kneeling down beside him to check his pulse. It was strong and steady and his breathing was deep and even, it was like he was in a really deep sleep that no one could wake him from. Hannah's brows knitted together. She had pushed him to loose consciousness, but this state of unconsciousness was far beyond anything that she had done to him.

Dean reappeared by the door, putting the gun into the waistband of his jeans. "I'd like to know what you did to my brother Doc, I was yelling in his ear for a few minute before you came to and I can't get boo out of him."

"This isn't me." She said brushing the hair out of Sam's face.

"Forgive me for being skeptical Doc, but weren't you the one who knocked his ass out?"

Hannah looked up at Dean her eyes filling with concern. " I just put him under. This must be a result of the psychic backlash."

Dean came over to where she knelt and pulled one of Sam's arms across his shoulders. "The what?"

Hannah helped pulled Sam's dead weight up as Dean slung him across his shoulders, on nearly two occasions Dean looked like his knees might give out on him, but he somehow managed to keep Sam over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.

As Dean struggled with Sam into the house, Hannah walked behind, stopping Sam's limp body from slipping off Dean's shoulders.

"This is just a theory, but it is the only way that I have to explain it."

"Give me some answers now Doc." Said Dean testily half carrying and half dragging Sam into the living room,

"Humans were never meant to have the powers that Sam and I have Dean. Our bodies were not meant for it. So when we use a lot of psychic energy, we overload our physical body and it had to shut down for a while."

"This ever happen to you?" asked Dean letting his brother fall from his shoulders onto the couch.

"I loose consciousness on occasion." admitted Hannah, the colour rising to her cheeks as if this was something to be embarrassed about.

"Sam is out cold Doc, that's a little more than loosing consciousness." Said Dean as he turned on his heel and went outside to retrieve the young man from the porch.

Hannah hurried behind him as he walked.

"You said that all the chosen children were pitted against each other right?"

Dean stopped mid stride and turned back to look at her. "Yeah"

Hannah brushed her hair out of her eyes. "What if there was a finite amount of energy that had been split between the chosen. By pitting them against each other the Yellow Eyed Demon ensured that the strongest, the one most adept at wielding that power survived right?"

Dean eyed her following her train of thought. "What you think that each of the Chosen's power increased when they killed one of the other ones?"

"From your account of what happened it stands to reason?" said Hannah kneeling down beside the young man, who was beginning to stir. "Jake just kept getting stronger after he had done away with everyone…including Sam"

At the reminder a stab of pain lanced through Dean's gut. Hannah felt it too. She had always been very empathic with Dean, even since their first meeting, but she didn't like his pain, so she placed her hand on his arm in an effort to comfort him. Immediately, her mind was filled with images of Sam lying dead on the floor and an overwhelming grief struck her, making her almost physically sick.

She shook her head slightly to try and clear the memory that she knew had been Dean's.

"When Sam killed Jake, I think he got the Lion's share of the power." said Hannah quietly, carefully studying Dean's reaction.

"So what if he did?" replied Dean his defenses for his brother going into overdrive.

"Dean, Sam was never meant to have those powers. He died while competing for them."

Dean pulled the young man up and over his shoulder in one swift move, eager not to continue this conversation with the Doc.

"What are you trying to say Doc?"

Hannah sighed as she watched Dean manhandle the young man, who was effectively a stranger to them all into her living room.

"I honestly don't know Dean. Perhaps these powers are too much for Sam's body to cope with, perhaps the reason he was killed in the contest was not a matter of corruption be a case of physical limitation, who can say? All I know is that when Sam turned that attack on me, he tapped into more power than I have felt for a very long time"

Dean lay his burden down on the sofa opposite the one his brother now lay on and turned back to study the Doc.

"Dean, Sam frightened me tonight" she admitted, her voice growing incredibly quiet, so much so that Dean had to struggle to even hear it "If he had greater control over this power, I have no doubt he could have killed me."

Dean wanted to be angry with the Doc; he wanted to rail against what she said and defend his brother with every breath in his body. But he understood what it had taken for her to make an admission of that kind. If nothing else in this world, the Doc was certainly proud. For her to admit her fear to him, only went to validate her opinions of Sam.

Dean moved close to her, but her eyes were locked onto some far away place. He circled her wrist with his fingers, and gave and gently squeeze. She didn't look at him in the eye, but instead looked down to where there bodies were locked. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and bent down to whisper in her ear, letting his hand run up and down her forearm to try and bring about warmth and comfort.

"I'm going to go down and get the truck." He whispered, "Watch out for my brother would you?"

With that he walk past her, not letting the contact between them be broken until the very last minute.

Hannah heard the front door close and it shook her from her reverie. She hurried into the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water. Reaching to the cupboard near the range hood, she pulled out cotton wipes, bandages and antiseptic.

Walking back into the living room, Hannah sank down to her knees in front of Sam and dampened a cotton wipe and with infinitely gentle fingers she wiped the dried blood from Sam's top lip and from under his nose. With her free hand she brushed his dark hair away from his face.

"If I did this to you Sam." she whispered her voice catching slightly in her throat "I am so sorry. I truly never meant to hurt you. I was just trying to stop you from hurting yourself or someone else. When you wake up, I hope you can forgive me."

At her last words, Sam seemed to stir slightly his eyes moving rapidly under his eyelids like he was dreaming. Hannah held her breath, hoping the Sam would gain consciousness, but he seemed to groan slightly and then drop back to the comatose state that he had been in for the last 10 minutes or so.

Hannah sighed, scrunching the bloodied wipe up and putting it on the coffee table. She then turned her attention on the young man who slumped in the other sofa. She poured the antiseptic into the bowl of water and began cleaning the jagged wounds on the young man's arm.

As soon as the cotton touched his skin, the young man flinched and nearly snatched his arm back his eyes flying open in wide eyed fear.

"Shhhh" said Hannah gently "You're Ok. You're safe for the moment."

The young man looked at her with a sudden recognition. "I know your voice." he managed to croak.

Hannah smiled at the young man, who couldn't have been more than 19 or 20. He had a tall skinny frame, not nearly as tall as Sam, but his gangly physique made him look more awkward some how.

"Don't try and talk." said Hannah gently sponging off the seeping blood from his arm. "You've had quite a night."

The young man grabbed on to her arm and dragged her attention to his eyes, eyes that seemed far too large for his face.

"What happened to me?" he asked, the effort of speaking and the realization that something horrendous had happened making his eyes tear up. Without shame he let the fat tears roll down his face.

Hannah cocked her head sideways, her own eyes tearing up at the young man's shock and confusion. Every emotion that he felt rolled off of him in waves that hit her like a kick in the chest. Usually she did better when she was faced with an onslaught of emotion, but Hannah's own thoughts and feeling were so close to the surface that she couldn't help feeling everything.

"It's going to be ok." she said almost choking on the words as they came out "Just try and rest. What's your name?"

The young man looked around as if he were suddenly confused by his surroundings. He was like a little boy looking for a parent in a crowded super market. "Michael" he said "My name Michael but everyone calls me Mike."

Hannah wiped her thumb along Mike's cheek, wiping the tracks of his tears off of his face. She tried to smile, but her muscles just couldn't be convinced to work right now.

"Mike, my name is Hannah. I'm going to look out for you OK." she said threading her fingers into his hand, giving him something solid to hold onto.

The front door opened suddenly and Dean came barreling through it carrying the two duffle bags full of weapons. Hannah stood abruptly letting go of Mike's hand and she hurried through to the kitchen. For a reason that she couldn't explain it was important for her to come across as strong to Dean and the tears that were in her eyes now, belied that very image.

With an impatient hand she dragged it across her eyes and took a deep breath, then she turned on her heel and walked out to where Dean had parked the truck and helped him with the bags still on the flatbed.

"The kid is awake." she said, hating how her voice wavered betraying what was going on inside of her.

"Is he ok?" asked Dean slinging his pack over his shoulder and carrying the Doc's case into the house.

"Would you be?" asked the Doc as she followed him into the house, turning the porch light off as she closed the front door.

"Where am I taking these." said Dean looking back at Hannah over his shoulder. He already had one foot on the stairs so Hannah knew that he had seen most of the bedrooms.

"At the top of the stairs turn right. You can have the master bedroom and you can put Sam's stuff in front room next to that." explained Hannah

"And this?" said Dean indicating her suitcase.

"Top of the stairs, first room on the left." she said and Dean didn't wait he just hurried up the stairs. His bounding strides made Hannah feel tired just watching him.

Hannah went back to attending to Mike's wounds. Thankfully the young man had drifted back off to sleep, the shock finally taking its toll. He slipped in and out of consciousness as she cleaned and dressed his wounds. She had to get Dean to help her dress the wounds on his chest and then they took him up the stairs and put him in the room next to the Doc's.

As they walked down the stairs, Dean looked over his shoulder a cocky smile pulling at his lip.

"This isn't exactly a cottage Doc. I think that anyplace that has four or more bedrooms can't be considered a cottage."

Hannah shrugged and easy shoulder "Depends on what your point of comparison is. In comparison to the massive houses down the coast, this would be lucky to be called a work shed."

Dean shrugged slightly conceding the point. He had to admit the house was beautiful. It had been built into the headland, cutting into the rock and using the natural camber of the rocky shore. There were four levels, to the house, the top level where all bedrooms, the level that they came in on was filled with a large kitchen a formal lounge room and a dining room.

He hadn't seen much of the two lower levels, but he had spied a bar and pool table and another room that looked like a library with, it's floor to ceiling books. There had been a door on the third level leading to a lower floor, but it had been locked when Dean did a sweep of the house, so he would have to see where that went in the morning.

The house was all timber, even the floors where timber, but the Doc had put large rugs and hall runners throughout the house. To Dean the style, the remoteness, even the configuration appealed to him. He hadn't thought a lot about houses in the past, knowing that he would never have one, but if his life were different he would have loved to have lived in a house just like this.

"Coffee?" asked Hannah heading down the hall to the kitchen.

"Sure!" said Dean following closely behind. He was also outrageously hungry, but he felt rude asking the Doc so he held his tongue.

"Adam would have put some food in the pantry and stocked the fridge if your hungry." said Hannah mildly and Dean nearly did a little jig. There really were some advantages at hanging out with a psychic.

He pulled open the tall cupboard that lead to the pantry and did a double take as one whole side was filled with boxes of toasters and kettles. His eyebrows knitted together as he looked at the dozens of appliances just sitting there still in their box.

"One of the draw backs of hanging out with a psychic." said Hannah "When I get upset I have this tendency to blow up electrical equipment."

Dean eyed her with mock suspicion "Remind me to never let you use my laptop."

Hannah laughed "Good call." she said "I don't get on well with computers."

Hannah filled the kettle and set it to boil. Turning she rested her hip against the counter, watching as Dean pulled a packet of cookies out of the pantry, tearing the top off and stuffing two in his mouth in one fluid motion.

He walked over to the breakfast counter and jumped up so that he was balanced on the edge looking at her. He offered her the open end of the cookie bag but she shook her head.

"If Anane wasn't lying" Hannah began "and Asbeel is the one coming at us, this isn't good."

"Tell me about him?" said Dean his mouth so full of cookie that he was almost unintelligible.

"He is one of the fallen." she said "He beguiles others giving them misleading or bad counsel until he ultimately brings about their downfall, and he is as powerful with other demons as he is with humans."

"You think it set up this Anane to go down so that it could see what we were capable of?"

Hannah shrugged slightly walking over to the cupboard where she kept her coffee mugs. "Maybe not testing us necessarily, but perhaps Asbeel sent Anane to test what sort of defenses protected the grimoires."

Dean's brows knitted together as Hannah spoke "Why can't these things have better names like Frank or Ed?"

Hannah looked wryly at him "Oh that would just sound fantastic in you journal wouldn't it. _'Earlier this evening we bested the dread demon Ed and now we are going for the great and mighty Frank'_."

"You're right it does lack a certain something."

Hannah smiled, it was nice to break the tension of the evening with a little humor and lord knew they were all very tense from the evening's events.

"How do you take it?" said Hannah holding up the mug of coffee.

"Lots of cream, lots of sugar thanks." replied Dean shoving another cookie in his mouth.

Hannah's face grew suddenly solemn as she handed him the mug. "Do you think any more will come tonight?"

Dean held her gaze as he took the coffee from her. Her eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles under her eyes. The night's events had certainly taken their toll on her and instinctively Dean knew that she would never admit to her fatigue, but she was clearly worried that she would have to fight again this evening.

"Maybe?" said Dean trying to sound un-phased by the prospect. "I'll stay up and watch the place though. I was going to keep and eye on Sam anyway, and I'll be damned if I carry his heavy ass up those stairs. He was lucky he even made it into the house!"

Hannah smiled at him and took a sip from her cup of tea.

"You have defenses in place though right?" questioned Dean "Just in case you better run through them with me. And it wouldn't hurt us to salt all the windows and doors."

Hannah nodded and put her tea cup down gently in the sink, walking over to the box that sat on the counter that Adam had bought for them. "I'll" show you." she said pulling a bag of rock salt out of the box.

They started with the front door. Hannah explained all the hidden demonic booby traps that she had put in the house. Devil's traps had been painted on the underside of the floor boards, acting like a demonic form of land mines. By each door and window, there were cunning channel ways cut into the wood that were hidden by a thin wooden lids, that allowed salt to be stored in front of every opening, without being poured directly on the floor.

Hannah also pointed out inscription painted in Aramaic, Sumerian and Babylonian that were hidden in the cornices of rooms or carved into the skirting boards of hallways. Dean looked on impressed. The whole house had been fortified against Demon's in every way that he could conceive of and in a few that he couldn't.

Hannah knew that Dean was impressed by the defenses that she had put in place, however she could take no joy from his praise. She had gone to such effort not to protect the grimoires from other demons but to protect them from herself.

Hannah knew that the demonic force that had once controlled every aspect of her life still dwelled within her and only tenacity and discipline kept it at bay. If she were ever to falter, she had safeguarded the grimoires so that the demon inside her would never be able to use the books that she had collected against anyone else. The fact that was even a remote possibility filled her with shame.

Finally, they found themselves standing in front of the locked door that lead down to the lowest level.

"I built a vault in the basement that I use for the grimoires." she said.

"A vault?" said Dean "Are you serious?"

Hannah looked at him, her eyes filling with pain "I told you I would never let it happen again."

Dean swallowed hard, troubled by the clear look of suffering on the Doc's face. He didn't do negative emotions well, preferring to gloss over them with a smart assed comment or ignore them all together. But he knew the Doc deserved more from him, so he slipped his hand across her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze.

"You've gone to a lot of trouble Doc. I'm sure it will never happen again."

Hannah nearly wept at the sincerity in his voice. She hadn't expected that from him and he had caught her off guard as a result. To cover her response she busily made her way back up the stairs.

"Well I'm going to check on Mike and then get some sleep myself. There are quilts on the chairs if you get cold and there are blankets in the linen cupboard under the stairs." she said a little too hastily.

"Thanks Doc" Dean called after her as he watched her continue up to her room.

He walked into the living room where Sam was slumped awkwardly on the sofa. He moved closer to his brother, pulling off his boats and maneuvering his body so that he was lying down on the sofa.

"Jesus Bro" he muttered as he pulled a quilt off the back of the sofa and spread it over Sam "Your feet stink."

Once he had finished seeing to Sam, Dean sunk into one of the lush chairs that faced out to the front porch. He had turned out all the lights and sat in the dark looking for movement.

"So" he muttered to the prone form of his brother "How's unconsciousness? I hope it's working out well for you? No? Nothing? Thanks Sammy, this has been the most productive conversation that we've had for a while."

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**1:06 am Newport – Rhode Island**

Hannah had struggled to get to sleep, tossing in her bed for an hour or two before she had finally fallen into the fitful sleep that now had her. She was dreaming and she was conscious of the fact that she was dreaming, the images filling her head, so absurdly discordant that it could only be the result of a dream.

One moment she was walking through the gardens of Oxford and then next she found herself in an austere Victorian house. It had been dimly light by candle mounted on the wall. The house contained no furniture and when she opened the door to the room that she was in, it lead to a long corridor with hundred of like doors all leading off of it.

Even in the dreaming state, Hannah's eyebrow drew together in confusion. Something about this dream didn't seem right. This house seemed foreign to her in some way. She couldn't quite explain why she had this feeling, but looking at the carpet and the décor of the house, she knew that this could not have come from her imagination.

She had grown up on an estate built in the Victorian period, she knew them intimately down to the patterns on the hall runners and the brass handles of the door. This house, seemed like what someone's idea of a Victorian house should be, like it was from a movie set or a theme park.

She pulled a candle from the wall and starting off down the hall, she tested each door that she passed. Some where locked, others lead to identical rooms like the one that she had started in. She kept walking on trying to understand the discordant feeling that she had in her gut.

A horrible idea formed in her head. She and Dean had shared memories in the past; perhaps their proximity meant that they were sharing memories now. Perhaps this wasn't Hannah's dream but Dean's.

Sick of randomly opening doors and worried that her suspicion was proving to be write. Hannah called out into the silence of the halls. "Hello!"

She waited for a heartbeat for any kind of response, and when none was forthcoming, she called out again. Somewhere down the hall she heard a muffled response. It seemed like it was coming from very far away. Hannah couldn't make out what was said, but there was no denying that she heard a voice.

She hurried down the hall, calling out and then waiting for the response to give her some indication of where she was going.

"Dean is that you?" she called opening doors in the vicinity where she had heard the last response. Again she found nothing until she opened one door that instead of leading to another empty room, lead to a corridor the looked to be part of a network of stair cases. She walked through looking over the banister that her hand rested on to see hundred of levels of walkways and stair cases.

It was like the house had been designed like one of these mind taxing Escher paintings. Depending on how you looked at it, the staircases that you were looking at looked to be going down, but were connected to the level above.

"Hello?" Hannah called again her voice echoing in the stair well that seemed to plummet down without end.

"Hannah?" was the response that she heard, and she quickly looked over the banister so that she could see the owner of the voice. To add to her confusion she saw Sam looking up at her from one of the lower levels.

"Sam? What the hell is going on?" she said

"I have no idea." he said "How'd you get in here, cause I've been stuck in here for hours?"

Hannah gave him a quizzical look. Something was definitely not right here. She had pretty much accepted that she was in someone else's dream, but she had assumed it had been Dean's. Instead she had somehow managed to get pulled into Sam's dream.

"Sam, what is the last thing you remember?" she asked still looking down at where he was on the floors below him.

Sam's face twisted in concentration as if thinking of anything outside of this house and its maze of stairs was difficult. "I don't know." he said helplessly "It's all a bit hazy. But I remember you telling me about the ward and then it goes a bit wacky."

"Wacky how?" persisted Hannah

"Well for some reason, I remember you attacking me and I had to fight you off" Sam seemed slightly embarrassed at the idea and his voice turned some what sheepish.

"And then?" pushed Hannah feeling her blood run to her face as she leaned out over the banister to see where Sam stood.

"Then nothing" said Sam "I was here. I keep thinking I can hear someone, but you're the first person that I've seen."

Hannah looked around at the stair cases that surrounded them on every side "Do you know where we are Sam?"

Again Sam's brows knitted together as he considered it. "No, but I have this strange feeling that I've been here before."

"Stay right where you are, Sam. I'm going to come to you Ok."

Hannah considered their situation as she jogged to the nearest stair case. She wasn't sure if this was Sam's consciousness or some 'dream Sam' that someone else had created. Hell for all she knew she was still in her own dream and this was one of her mental creations, but that explanation felt wrong to her.

She felt wrong, alien in this place, her instincts told her that this was someone else's creation and she trusted her instincts heavily. The question was whose creation was it. The likely candidate was off course Sam, but she couldn't discount the fact that she and Dean had shared a psychic connection in the past.

She turned onto the walkway where she thought Sam ought to be, but it was empty. Hannah called out to him looking down at the levels below. When he responded his voice came from above her. Hannah looked up into eyes that held the same confusion that troubled her.

There was no way in the world that she could have gone to the level below without having passed Sam along the way, yet somehow she had done just that.

"How'd you get down there?" questioned Sam, leaning out over the banister.

Hannah shook her head in irritation. "Bloody dream logic" she muttered under her breath.

"What the hell is going on here?" said Sam banging his hand on the banister in frustration.

"I don't know?" confessed Hannah "But I can offer you a theory."

"Well I'm not going anywhere in a hurry, so you may as well lay it on me."

"Are you sure?" questioned Hannah "I'm not sure you're going to like it?"

"Just tell me." said Sam resigned to hear whatever she had to say.

"I think we're in your psyche." said Hannah leaning backwards out on the banister so that she could watch Sam's reaction.

"Come again?" said Sam

"Sam I think this is an image that you have pulled from your subconscious and we are now stuck in it. A bit like a dream, but rather than just part of your consciousness being here, as it is with dreams, you and I, we're in boots and all."

"Why? I don't understand." he confessed but before he could answer his head shot up "Wait did you hear that?"

Hannah strained her ears "Hear what?"

"That voice" said Sam looking at the upper levels of the stairwell "That's the voice that I heard before."

A chill ran down Hannah's spine and her arms and neck broke out in goose bumps "Sam what is the voice saying?" she asked cautiously.

"It's just calling out my name." said Sam looking down at Hannah "Can't you hear that?"

A horrible thought occurred to her, Hannah couldn't hear the voice because she wasn't meant to. She really wasn't meant to be here at all. Somehow when they were both asleep, Sam had pulled Hannah into his dream, but she knew, in the same way that she knew how to breathe, that she wasn't meant to be here.

"Sam, listen to me and only me" she cautioned "ignore the other voice completely"

Sam looked down at Hannah quizzically

"Please just trust me Sam; you have to ignore that voice. Something really bad will happen if you don't."

Sam shrugged and kept looking down at Hannah "It wants me to come and find it." he said translating for her "It keeps calling my name and it is getting louder."

"I don't think it is good Sam, please just ignore it." said Hannah, but she could see the disbelief on Sam's face. She couldn't honestly blame him for being sceptical, after all, hadn't she found him by calling out to him.

"God" said Sam putting his hand over his ears "How can you not hear this?"

"Sam stay with me" said Hannah trying not to speak too loudly.

Before she could look up at him, Hannah caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye, she turned towards it but she was too late, someone had appeared from the door immediately behind her and collected her around the waist and in a tangle of arms and legs they had barrelled over the banister and begun falling down the stair well.

Sam didn't see what hit her, but he saw Hannah and something else fly over the banister. He cried out in shock and alarm, but there was nothing he could do, he just watched as she disappeared into the darkness of the stair well.

* * *

Hannah had the briefest sensation of falling and as she grabbed out to save herself she felt her mattress beneath her hands. There was a horrible weight on her chest and she couldn't draw breath. Opening her eyes she saw Mike looming over her, his eyes open but unfocused. He had his hand around her throat and he laughed in delight as his grip tightened.

Hannah tried to pry his hands from his throat, but she didn't have the strength. She couldn't breath and her disorientation and lack of breathe were driving her very quickly to panic. Closing her eyes she reached for her power, but is seemed elusive and every time she tried to grab on to it to wield it as she knew she could, it slipped away from her like water through her fingers.

She thrashed underneath the young man, but could not budge him and she started to feel the familiar darkness edging in on her.

"Not yet, you dirty fag." hissed Mike "You don't get out of it that easily."

With more strength than she imagined was in him, Mike threw Hannah from the bed on to the floor, whatever air had been in her lungs left her in a painful rush. She tried to gain her orientation quickly, but Mike was already on her. He back handed her hard, and pain exploded behind her eye, distracting her from the fact that he had flipped her over and was pinning her arms behind her back

"This is how we punish fucking fags." he hissed, dribbling spittle on to her face.

With his free hand he dragged the hem of her night gown up her leg, scratching her brutally with his fingernails as he did so.

Hannah cried out hoping that Dean would hear her, but the sound had barely left her lips when Mike hit her again knocking her senseless. He moved with unnatural speed and purpose, hooking one hand into her panties and tearing the lace that held them to her hip.

"This is what you want isn't it?" he taunted, unzipping his jeans and letting his full erection spring forth.

Seeing his intent, gave Hannah renewed strength and she thrashed beneath him, trying to hit him but being on her stomach severely hindered her movements. In her struggles she managed to knock over the small table beside her bed, the lamp sitting on it falling to the floor with a crash.

* * *

Sam watched on in horror as Hannah and her attacker fell out of sight. He ran to the first set of stairs heading down and flew down them taking them two and three at a time. He had no idea what he was doing, but his instincts told him to get to where they had fallen and he was listening to it.

He swung around the corner running along the hallway and then turned sharply down the next flight of stairs. He ran and just kept running until his lungs hurt .He wasn't sure how many floors he had gone down, but it seemed irrelevant he just kept running.

As he turned a corner sharply he came to an abrupt holt as a little girl stood at the bottom of the stairs. He had seen this little girl before, in fact her knew her better than he cared to. In life she had been the adopted daughter of Isaiah Merchant and in death she had haunted the portrait of the Merchant family, callously butchering anyone that owned the painting.

Sam's mouth dropped open in surprise at the sight her. The last thing he had seen of her was watching her spirit turn to dust.

She smiled up at him, her dark eye holding an eerie light.

"I wasn't sure how I should look when I came and spoke to you?" said the little girl "But of all the things in your head, I have to confess this one tickled my fancy."

She held her dress out and admired it as she swung the doll in her hand carelessly. "What do you think?"

"Who are you?" asked Sam his voice turning hard and his body coiling ready to defend himself.

"Relax Sam." it said "I'm a friend" the little girl looked down wistfully at her own form "Perhaps this wasn't the wisest choice for our first introduction."

Sam looked on as the form of the little girl shimmered and then morphed into that of his father.

"Is this better?" John Winchester said as he held out his arms for his son's inspection.

Sam's eye narrowed in suspicion "Who are you?" he repeated "Because I know you're not my father."

John Winchesters' face fell like he was somewhat crestfallen at the suspicion that was directed at him from his son.

"You're right. I'm not your father, but I am your friend."

"What do you want?" said Sam chancing a glance over the banister to see if he could see any sign of Hannah's body.

"I want you to live up to your potential. I want you to recognise your birthright." said John signalling for Sam to come down the stairs to him. When Sam didn't move, he sighed indulgently and made himself comfortable on the bottom stair.

"You are the last of the chosen, Sam. You were always destined for greatness."

Sam watched as the image of John Winchester studied some imaginary dirt under its finger nails.

"Hannah said that I shouldn't trust you." he said, eager to see what sort of reaction this being would have to that kind of news.

"You're going to trust her?" said John Winchester the incredulity thick in his voice. "Well that's rich, she allied herself with one of the nastiest demons in hell, she killed her own family to prove her loyalty to that bastard and now she is stock piling all of the grimoires for him."

"You're lying" said Sam, confident that he was right. That is what these things did. They mixed a little bit of truth in with a lot of fabrication to validate their stories, and Hannah had already told them about her run in with her demon.

"If I'm lying then explain this to me, why didn't she destroy the grimoires? Why keep them unless you intend to use them for something?" the form of John Winchester clicked its tongue disapprovingly "Sam, I honestly thought I taught you better than that."

Sam felt the question like a punch in the stomach. He had asked himself the same thing, but he had never bought it up with Hannah. He wondered now why he hadn't.

"Sam a war is here" said the being masquerading as John Winchester "Lot's of people are going to die, but you can prevent a lot of the blood shed."

"Really?" scoffed Sam "How?"

"Just make sure that the right person has hold of the weapons."

"And what you're telling me that 'right' person is you are you?"

The visage of John Winchester shrugged indifferently "Sam, you're a smart guy and I wouldn't presume to do that. You need to decide on your own."

A warning coursed through Sam. In the back of his mind he heard Hannah's warning words to him _"Please just trust me Sam; you have to ignore that voice. Something really bad will happen if you don't_."

This wasn't right, none of this was right. He looked around himself like he was just coming out of a day dream. His senses heightened, his eyesight narrowing down on the creature, his hearing picking up the brush of its clothing and the steady breath coming out of the John Winchester doppelganger.

His instinct told him to leap the banister and for an instant her mentally fought the idea, but the push was so strong, that in one smooth motion, Sam had gone from nearly standing still, to flicking his long legs over the banister and dropping down into the darkness of the stairwell.

He heard his father's voice cursing as he fell. Sam held his arms out as he fell, but instead of whistling through the air, they struck something hard. Sam looked across and realised that he was lying on a Sofa, not falling through a stairwell at all.

* * *

She didn't hear the footsteps as they raced up the stairs, she didn't hear the door as it flew open, the first moment that she realised Dean was with them, was when she saw his boot connect with Mike's head, mere inches from her face.

The force of the impact sent Mike sprawling across the floor, but he recovered quickly. Dean only had a moment to look down and see if the Doc was ok, before he had to ready himself for the next attack. Dean went for the gun at his waist, but before he could get a shot off, Mike had caught his wrist and collected him around the middle, pushing him hard into the wall.

The air left Dean's lungs, but it wasn't enough to prevent him from fighting back. Mike was trying to wrestle the gun out of Dean's hand and Dean used the tugging momentum to move the tussle around so that he was no longer pressed up against the wall. Mike struck out wildly, hitting Dean in the stomach and doubling him over.

As pain shot through him, Dean lost his grip on the gun; Mike was able to push him backwards so that sprawled over the floor, giving Mike a clear shot.

Hannah heard the scream erupt from her throat as Mike levelled the gun at Dean and pulled the trigger. Dean rolled his body to the side trying to protect his head and vital organs, he waited for the bite of the bullet but it never came.

He looked over at Hannah and her eyes were fixed on the bullet and they blazed molten mercury. The bullet sat suspended in the air mere inches from the gun. Even Mike took a moment to study the unexpected response of the bullet, but he recovered faster than everyone else and pulled the trigger several more times.

As the barrel of the gun flashed, Sam burst into the room. He could feel what Hannah had done to stop the first bullet and with an instinct born of fear, he mimicked it, reaching deep inside himself, and then sending his mind outwards until he had a firm hold of the next three bullets.

Dean didn't give Mike another opportunity to fire. While the younger man was distracted looking at the bullets that hovered almost motionless in the air, the older Winchester, swept his legs out from under him, hitting him hard in the jaw as he fell.

A heartbeat passed between Sam, Dean and Hannah and on a collective exhaled breath, the suspended bullets fell out of the air, clattering on the floorboards as they fell.

Dean looked at Sam, whose eyes were once again their warm brown instead of the burning amber. Then he looked at Hannah, who stared unmoving into the darkness.

"Damn" he said swallowing hard "Good timing Sammy. How the hell did you do that?"

Sam swallowed too, looking between Dean and Hannah, who still sat motionless on the floor, in her torn nightgown.

"I don't know" he admitted.

Dean moved quickly, sparing Mike a cursory look before he hurried to Hannah's side. He put gentle hands on either side of her face, trying to drag her focus on to him.

"Doc?" he whispered gently "Doc, are you alright?"

Hannah looked at him, but her eyes were unfocused, and wild in shock.

"Doc" said Dean again commanding her with his voice to focus only on him "Are you alright?"

Hannah swallowed hard, seeming to refocus her eyes on Dean, she looked at him for a second, and then she looked at where Mike lay on the floor and where Sam stood in the doorway.

Dean prompted her with his eyes to speak and she nodded a mumbled affirmation coming out of her mouth of its own accord.

"What happened Doc?" Dean asked "Did we miss something? Is this guy still possessed?"

"No" said Hannah realising that her voice was shaking as she spoke. "If he were possessed he wouldn't have been able to move around the house."

"Well that means that Mike was acting on his own then?" said Dean confused by the whole situation. He had seen Mike as they put him to bed and the kid had been more like a terrorised toddler than the love child of Jack the Ripper.

"No" said Sam as he walked into Hannah's bedroom and knelt down beside the unconscious young man. "I don't think he was conscious of what he was doing…I think he was asleep."

"You mean he did all of this like he was sleepwalking?" said Dean in a disbelieving voice.

"I think so" said Sam, watching as the young man's pupils moved rapidly like he was in full REM sleep.

"It would stand to reason." said Hannah fighting to hold herself together by turning to her intellect "My abilities went a bit haywire for a while, but I couldn't feel any strong emotion coming off of him. It was like he was blank."

"Or asleep." said Sam vocalising what they were all thinking.

"Well, I'm sorry but I'm not going to take any more chances with him tonight. Sam go and see if you can find any rope, we'll see how well he can sleep walk when he's tied to the bed."

Sam nodded and hurried out of the room. Dean swung his attention back to the Doc's, he hadn't realised earlier but she had taken hold of one of his hand's and was squeezing it with bone cracking strength.

"I'm going to take him back to the other room. Then you should let me have a look at that eye."

Hannah nodded her head a gesture that was part panic, part hysteria.

"Are you sure you're ok?" asked Dean dubiously. Hannah was tough he knew that, but an attack like this was enough to rattle anyone's chains.

Hannah turned her blue eyes on him and while they were full of tears, she would never let any of them fall. Dean could almost feel her pulling the energy close to protect herself, and when she gave him a wan smile he gave her hand one last squeeze before moving off to see to the unconscious young man.

"You're starting to make a habit of this passing out shit." he muttered as he pulled the young man none too gently across the floor "and unless your looking to really piss me off, I'd reconsider that."

Hannah was left alone in her room and she looked around herself suddenly bereft. With an indignant hand she straightened what was left of her night gown and willed herself to stand on legs that felt like they were made of bread dough.

She walked quickly over to the chest of draws next to her wardrobe, pulling a new pair of panties and some satin pyjamas out of the draw. With hands shaking with anger and shock she pulled what remained of her pants from her body, running her hand over the welts and scratches that were raising on her leg, then she quickly stepped into her fresh underwear and exchanged her torn nightgown for the pyjamas.

She rolled the torn lace and satin into a tight ball and slammed it down on her dressing table. She didn't know who she was angrier with, Mike or herself, but all she knew is that she could feel a coil of rage tighten inside her.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Changing her clothes had done a lot to help settle her emotions, but her hair was in a mess and she could see bruising starting to form on her eye and around her cheek. With shaking hands she picked up her brush and began taming her long wild hair. Almost on autopilot, she twisted her hair into a neat chignon and pushed a comb into the side to hold it all in place.

Hannah studied her reflection in the mirror, a voice inside of her was telling her that it was ok to break down and cry, but she had stopped listening to voices in her head a long time ago, even when they were her own. From a hook on the back or her bathroom door, she pulled a long black satin bath robe and slipped it over her pyjamas, and then with almost thoughtless ease she slipped her feet into her slippers and headed towards Mike's room.

"Will he be Ok?" Hannah whispered in an icy tone.

Dean looked up at her as he tied one of Mike's feet to the bead post. Like always she had groomed herself into the vision of perfection, but her face was cold and hard and her mouth was set in a grim line. He could see her eye starting to swell, but it was like if she ignored it strenuously enough it would go away.

"He's going to have a very sore head tomorrow, but he's alive, so all things considered I think he'll be ok. What about you?" said Dean "You Ok?"

Hannah's expression did not change she just nodded slightly and whispered "Just so." Her voice held neither inflection nor intonation, but her body language spoke volumes. She held herself very rigid, with her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her chin was raised almost in challenge. Her eyes were sharp, and her mouth set, but she did not move into the room. Even though Mike was tied up, she remained very deliberately on the other side of the door jam.

Dean couldn't exactly blame her for her reluctance, but he thought it was interesting that she wasn't handling this quite as well as she wanted everyone to believe. He had worked out from their last meeting that appearances were very important to the Doc, but he hadn't really understood how deeply that instinct had run until now.

"He's not going anywhere like this." said Dean pulling on the rope he had just tied for emphasis. He hoped that if he could convince her of Mike's incapacity, she might feel more at ease. Hannah's demeanour did not change; she simply eyed the prone form coldly from her position of safety by the door.

"I might go and put the kettle on "she whispered turning away from where the two brothers were working. She took two steps down the hall and then turned back looking over her shoulder. "I'm glad to see you up and about Sam."

With that she disappeared down the hall. Sam looked up from where he was tying up Mike's wrist and watched with hard eyes as Hannah disappeared out of site.

"What's that about?" said Dean watching his brother and missing none of the scathing look he had directed towards the Doc.

"Nothing." muttered Sam dismissively

Dean grabbed hold of Sam's arm and spun him so they were looking eye to eye. "Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter Sam. What is your problem?"

"What's my problem?" repeated Sam working hard to hand on to his temper "Not so long ago that woman attacked me."

Dean hissed air through his teeth "Sam she didn't attack you, she was just trying to knock you out."

"Generally speaking anyone trying to do that is attacking you." protested Sam

"She only did that because you pointed a gun at her." said Dean annunciating each word to stress his point.

"Yeah Dean?" said Sam inching closer to his brother "Well I don't trust her."

Refusing to be intimidated by Sam's superior height Dean took a step closer too "Well I do!"

"Why Dean?" demanded Sam "Why would _'Mister I don't trust another human being in this world'_ suddenly come to trust her."

"Sam, have you completely lost your mind?" replied Dean "She saved both our asses in Iowa."

Sam stood firm his mouth set in a grim line "And she got her hands on another grimoire!"

"Yeah…So?"

Sam looked at his brother, his blood pumping hot in his veins. He had no idea why he was using the words of the presence in his dream, particularly when every instincts inside of him wanted to write it off, but he felt caught between two mighty forces that were pulling him in two directions an he had no answers to make an educated choice which way to go.

"Why does she keep the grimoires Dean?" hissed Sam through clenched teeth "If they're so dangerous, why keep them? Why not destroy them, or send them to the bottom of the ocean or do any of 100 other things to them?"

"I don't know!" blustered Dean " Maybe they can't be destroyed. Maybe they have some homing spell on them to make sure they are always found. Maybe…."

"Maybe Hannah wants to use them for herself?"

Sam and Dean stood toe to toe, so close their chests almost touched.

"You don't know anything about it?" said Dean dangerously low. As he faced off with his brother, the memories of Hannah's raw emotions, the pain and horror of what her choices had bough to bear on her life filled him.

"Oh and you do?" retorted Sam in the same predatory tone. "You know this woman so well?"

"Yes I do." said Dean without hesitation.

"Oh, so you know how she killed her own family then?" spat Sam, looking for the words that would give him the winning blow. He waited for Dean to comprehend the words, to look at him with the same kind of horror that Sam felt in saying them, but instead Dean's gaze held steady.

Realisation dawned and Sam couldn't help his jaw slackening in shock. "You did, didn't you?" he said, his shock quickly turning to accusation "You knew that she killed her family and you didn't tell me?"

Dean took a step back letting the air escape out of his lungs on a heavy sigh. "Sam it isn't what you think."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he looked at his brother. "You don't have a god dammed clue what I think? I can't believe you kept this from me?"

"Sam, the Doc asked me to keep it to myself and I figured I owed her that much."

"Let me get this straight" said Sam almost doing a double take "Hannah tells you that she murdered her family and not only did you not tell me, but you're OK with this?"

"Sam she didn't do it, the Demon that possessed her at the time did." said Dean, his frustration at this whole situation rapidly starting to rise.

"Is that what she told you?" replied Sam, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Dean's tenuous hold on his temper snapped, before he realised what he was doing his fists were twisted in the front of Sam's shirt. "She didn't tell me shit Sam. I lived it with her like I was there in the room when it happened and I'm telling you, she didn't kill her family any more than you killed Jessica or Mom. So even if you don't trust her…trust me."

Sam tensed under the onslaught of Dean's anger, but as quickly as it sparked it was now fading. Dean let got of Sam's shirt smoothing the fabric out under his fingers like he wanted to smooth out the tension that was passing between them.

"Sam" began Dean, his tone quieter and more even "I died back there in Iowa, drowned in the creek that ran behind the Sorginak's house and the Doc revived me. We don't know how it happened, but while she was brining me back I lived the Doc's memories of the night her family was killed. I witnessed everything and I know she didn't kill them."

Sam looked at his brother in stunned silence. Dean had said nothing of that incident to Sam. On some level Sam was upset by this, but at the same time he was proud of his brother for not betraying Hannah's confidence. Sam still wasn't sure if he trusted the Doc, but he had no doubts about Dean. Dean had sacrificed everything for Sam and that left him beyond reproach.

"Aright" said Sam quietly "but we still need to ask her about the Grimoires?"

"I know" said Dean conceding the point "but not tonight. I think we've all had enough for one day."

Sam was about to speak, when a piercing siren blared throughout the house. Both Dean and Sam stiffened readying themselves for action. Dean's eyes went from his brother to down the hall. At the incessant screech of the alarm, all of his thoughts turned to one thing.

"Doc" he said with panic in his voice, before he launched himself down the hall with Sam at his heels.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**1.47 am - Newport, Rhode Island **

Dean ran down the stairs, his gut churning as the wail of a siren rang louder in his ears, as he spun around a faced the kitchen, he saw smoke and he felt bile rise in the back of his throat. As he ran into the kitchen he saw Hannah beating unsuccessfully at flames that were steadily creeping up the curtains over the sink.

Dean spotted a small fire extinguisher mounted on the wall near the stove and he headed for it. "Sam" he yelled as he moved hoping that his brother would follow his lead.

"I got it." called Sam reading his brother flawlessly, the taller Winchester nearly knocking Hannah off her feet as he hurried over and pulled the curtain rod from the wall, flaming curtains and all.

Sam dropped the curtain rod on the floor and stood back to let Dean attack it with the foaming fire extinguisher. The flames were eventually smothered by a sticky film of white foam, leaving the blackened curtain to smoke on the floor.

Dean tossed the fire extinguisher to Sam and turned to Hannah, who was staring wide eyed at the mass of smoking fabric on her kitchen floor.

"Are you all right? What happened?" said Dean grabbing a hold of her arms.

Hannah looked at him for a long moment her eyes wide and in shock and then to his amazement she began to laugh.

"What?" he said looking to Sam to see if Sam had any insight as to what was so funny. Sam just shrugged but he couldn't help a smile coming to his own lips at Hannah's strange response.

Hannah could hardly breath for laughing, it was either that or cry and she sure as hell was going to do that, she bent over double clinging to Dean's arm as great howls of laughter rolled up from her chest.

Dean was slightly taken back by the Doc's response, but in the face of her laughter he too couldn't keep a straight face. He found that he was snickering and he could hear Sam next to him doing the same, and when the brothers exchanged a look, the snickering grew to full blown laughter. They weren't quite sure what they were all laughing at, but once it started none of them could stop.

Dean felt his eyes tear up and his side began aching. Sam had braced himself against the kitchen counter and his shoulders shook as he laughed. Hannah had almost buried her face against Dean's shoulder and she clung to him for support her laughter so strong it had gone beyond noise and was just the ragged attempts at breathing.

As the crescendo of laughter died down, Hannah straightened herself up and took a much needed gulp of air.

"Christ" she said "I need a drink" and without another word she left the two brothers and went into the living room. Sam and Dean followed her and watched as she poured three glasses of brandy from a crystal decanter that sat on the side board.

She handed a glass to Sam and Dean and then took one for herself going to sit down on one of the plush sofas. Dean sat down next to her still looking at her expectantly and Sam took a position opposite them across the coffee table on the Sofa that was its twin.

"So are you going to share what just happened in there Doc or should we guess?" asked Dean, sniffing the brandy suspiciously but taking a quick sip none the less.

Hannah held the brandy glass in her hand, swirling the dark liquid around in the bottom of it. She didn't look at either one of the brothers, choosing instead to watch the hypnotic flow of her drink.

"I accidentally blew up the kettle as I was trying to make us tea." confessed Hannah taking a measured sip from her brandy.

"What and that's what caused the curtains to catch alight?" asked Sam, who held his glass but hadn't taken a drink from it yet.

Hannah looked at Sam, her blue eyes filling with pain. "No" she said in a near whisper "That's what made me angry at myself."

Sam and Dean exchanged looks of confusion at her words.

"Then I was overwhelmed by the tension that rose between the two of you and I got even angrier at myself and then poof….." she said miming the explosion that had set the curtains on fire.

Both Winchester's tensed at the Doc's words, they didn't want her to know that they had been talking about her, but it seemed very difficult to hide things from her.

"Doc" ventured Dean "There was no tension between Sam and I"

It sounded lame even to his own ears, but Hannah smiled at him for his effort.

"Dean" she said softly "You don't need to sugar coat it for me. While I don't know what words were said, the emotions came in loud and clear. I know why you were arguing."

Sam felt his blood run to his face, it was one thing to be suspicious of someone, it was quite another to be so transparent about it, particularly when you were in their home.

Hannah looked across the table at the younger Winchester her eyes solemn but sincere "Sam it's alright if you don't trust me. I understand I really do. And if the positions were reversed I'd probably feel the same way."

Sam looked at her pale face, watching for any signs of deception in her mannerisms but he did not speak or try and defend his feelings, the Doc could feel what he felt and no words could ever convey that adequately.

"Trust has to be earned and I haven't done a lot to earn it from you lately have I?"

At this point Dean cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable by the way this conversation was going.

"Doc, Sam and I have spoken and…."

The look that Hannah gave him, silenced Dean. It was one of such frank understanding that Dean felt foolish even continuing to speak. Hannah put a gentle hand on his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She understood that Dean was trying to smooth out what was a highly uncomfortable situation.

"It's alright Dean. I know that Sam has questions." Hannah turned her grey blue eyes to Sam "I'll answer anything that you ask me."

"Doc, we don't have to do this now." protested Dean

"I think we do" said Hannah quietly "Sam is uncomfortable and you feel like your caught between a rock and a hard place. And then there is me who could set the house on fire at any moment…So if any of us are going to be able to get any rest, I think we need to do this now."

Sam placed his glass on the table and scrubbed his hands over his face. There was certainly a lot of turmoil within him and he wanted to latch on to some beacon of truth, anything that would help him navigate the murky waters that were his emotions.

"Why did you attack me?" he asked simply

Hannah took in a deep breath and let it out slowly trying to order her thoughts. She had made a request not to have her truth sugar coated and she would offer Sam the same courtesy.

"Sam, Dean told me what happened between you and the other chosen, he told me that you had been killed and he told me what he did to get you back."

At the mention of the bargain, Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I don't know what happened to bring you back, but Sam you came back different."

"Doc." cried Dean mortified at the brutal frankness of Hannah's statement, but she wouldn't be silenced and one defiant look from her told him in no uncertain terms.

"I felt it as soon as I saw you in Wyoming. Hell you must feel it yourself."

Sam looked down unable to hold the Doc's scrutinising gaze.

"I do" he said quietly running his finger along the top edge of his glass.

"You have a well of power within you, so powerful that it frightens me a little." she confessed. "I know what its like to have all this power, and all these gifts thrust on to you. You feel and see and sense everything differently and it can be very disorienting."

Sam looked up at her; he wanted so desperately to believe her but a worm of doubt was still festering in his mind. She seemed to be speaking from personal experience and he just didn't want to go through what was going on inside him alone, but demons where tricky in that way, telling people what they wanted to hear and then manipulating them into doing exactly what they wanted.

"I thought if I could knock you out." continued Hannah "That I could then take you through what you sensed in the ward a little later, when it was safer and you were feeling a little more even. Foolishly I underestimated how strong you were and how quickly your preservation instincts would kick in. I had to take you down harder than I ever intended and I am very sorry for that."

Sam looked up again. He could tell by the look on Dean's face that Dean believed what Hannah was saying and he desperately wanted to, but something held him back.

"Did you kill your family?" he asked without preamble

Dean was now mortified by Sam's directness and he nearly said something, but Hannah put out a restraining hand. He noted that her face had grown pale and her eyes had become shiny with unshed tears, but she took a deep breath and composed herself before she spoke.

"Yes I did" she said quietly "I was under the influence of a demon at the time, but I bought it into my home and I unleashed it, so I alone have to accept responsibility for it."

Sam was somewhat taken back by her candour. He had expected her to try and find an argument to excuse her actions, but she had done exactly the opposite and taken responsibility for it. Sam was swamped with remorse; at first he thought it was his for asking her such a question and causing her so much obvious pain, but something about the feeling was alien to him and it dawned on him that he was feeling Hannah's remorse and grief.

"I'm sorry" confessed Sam "But I had to ask."

"I now." said Hannah grateful for the comforting hand that Dean had put on her shoulder.

"I only have one more question." said Sam looking almost apologetically at his brother "If the grimoires are so dangerous, why didn't you destroy them?"

Hannah sat up straighter in her chair, seemingly taken back by the question.

"In all honesty "she said sounding genuinely surprised "destroying them never really crossed my mind."

"Why?" asked Sam incredulously

"I guess for a couple of reasons." replied Hannah stuttering over her words slightly as she tried to order her thoughts on the subject. "I guess firstly it was pride. I'm an anthropologist and a good anthropologist would never destroy evidence."

"But they're evil." said Sam "Your saying that you kept them around for some academic pride."

"Sam the grimoires aren't evil. They're a tool yes and a weapon absolutely, but they are neither good nor evil"

Sam couldn't speak, he was lost for words unbelieving that she could even be making this argument.

"Guns are dangerous, bombs are dangerous, but on their own, they are neither good nor evil. It is how people use them that make them that way. Don't you see?"

Hannah was almost pleading with him to understand, but he just couldn't quite accept her argument.

"I'm sorry Doc, but after what you told us about your family, I think it's irresponsible not to have destroyed them."

"Sammy" interrupted Dean "We don't even know if they can be destroyed."

"But she should have at least tried Dean." argued Sam

"Perhaps" said Hannah quietly her eyes dropping to the floor in a look close to shame "Perhaps I should have destroyed them, but to me they represent knowledge and I just couldn't destroy that knowledge, not when I knew that it might be used to someday help someone. "

With her last words she looked meaningfully at Dean and it became clear to both the brothers that she had intended to look through the grimoires to see if there was some way to save Dean from his devils bargain.

That knowledge took all of the heat out of Sam's argument and he hastily took a sip from his brandy to try and ease his harried emotions.

"I'll take both of you to the vault in the morning "said Hannah quietly not looking at either brother "and if you feel that the best course of action would be to destroy them. Then that's what we will do."

No one spoke; they all just sat consumed by their own thoughts for a while.

"Dean" said Hannah quietly "Could I please trouble you to get something for my eye, it is starting to throb and it is making me feel a bit sick."

"Sure" replied Dean rising quickly from the sofa and walking into the kitchen.

Hannah leaned across the table to Sam and whispered in a low tone. "Having someone suspicious of you is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly when one considers how we came by our 'gifts'. Dean's loyalty and his hunger for a sense of family sometimes blind him to the faults and failings of those around him, so it is down to you and I. If you keep your suspicion of me, be my check and balance, I promise I will do the same for you."

Sam sat up tall in his seat, slightly surprised by Hannah's words. She wasn't asking for his trust but she was proposing a way that they coexisted. Sam held her intense gaze for a long moment before he nodded his head. She smiled and held out her hand, he took in his own and they shook to their new understanding.

"Will frozen peas do?" said Dean as he walked into the room completely unaware of the truce that had been struck.

"That should work fine." said Hannah smiling at him.

Dean had the good sense to bring a tea towel with him from the kitchen, so he wrapped the packet of peas in the towel and handed it to Hannah who eased it on to her rapidly swelling face.

Sam stood downing the last of the brandy in his glass and feeling warmth spread through him. He wanted to attribute the sensation to the brandy, but he knew that it was more than the drink. Having spoken about his suspicions and having come to an understanding, Sam now felt a hell of a lot better.

"I'm pretty wiped." he confessed honestly "Do you mind if I crash somewhere?"

"I put your stuff in the front bedroom" said Dean "Top of the stairs, hard right."

"Thanks" said Sam "Well, Goodnight." he said before disappearing up the stairs.

Dean followed his brother with his eyes and then turned to watch as Hannah rested her head on the back of the sofa, balancing her makeshift icepack on her face.

"Well this night has been one for the books." muttered Dean "Do you mind if I have another drink?"

"Knock yourself out." Hannah didn't look at him as she spoke but she could hear him move around the room and she felt an odd comfort to his presence.

"So" said Dean throwing back his second brandy "You often set the curtains on fire?"

Hannah couldn't help chuckling a little. "No, not often. When I first got my gifts I set some other things on fire, a few books; a coat; the shrubs by the driveway, but they were my first curtains."

"So what happens?" he said sitting back down next to her on the couch "you just think fire and you have a Drew Barrymore moment and something burst into flames?"

"To be honest" Hannah said sinking further down in the sofa to get a little more comfortable "I haven't looked too closely at it. Of all the gifts I have that is one of the more dangerous."

"I don't know Doc, from what I remember you seemed to have it pretty under control in Iowa." replied Dean remembered how the Doc had walked out of the inferno that was the Sorginak's house without so much as a scratch.

"Yeah well desperation can give you that necessary focus to get it right?" she said absently

Dean listened to her words, slightly troubled by them. He looked between where she was on the sofa and the glass of brandy in his hands debating if he should ask the next question. Oh screw it, he thought, they were having a 'throw your cards on the table' kind of night, there was no point stopping now.

"Is that how you did the bullet trick?"

"I think so" said Hannah entirely too casually for Dean's comfort levels "I've often played that scenario through in my head, but I've never had cause to test it until today."

Dean swallowed hard, thinking carefully about his next words.

"What happened with Mike then?"

Hannah stiffened slightly at Dean's words and lifted the cold pack from her face to look at him. He shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny, but held her intense gaze none the less.

"I don't know?" she said, her voice thickening with emotion "I tried to grab on to something, but the energy just slipped away from me."

The unsteadiness of her voice sparked every protective male instinct within Dean and without thought he moved closer to her, putting a comforting arm across her shoulders. Hannah turned into Dean's arm, resting her unbruised cheek against his chest. Normally Hannah would never have accepted such a gesture, but tonight she was at the end of her ability to stalwartly cope and she was grateful to Dean for his understanding.

Dean took the cold pack that sat idle in Hannah's lap and he bought it up to her swelling cheek, cradling her head in his hands.

"It was so strange, I don't think that was Mike. I think Sam was right, I think he was dreaming. The things he was saying just didn't make sense; like in his mind he was doing it to someone else." Hannah continued, feeling Dean rest his cheek on the top of her head. It was an intimate gesture, out of character for both of them, but together coupled with the events of the evening it seemed right.

Dean felt Hannah's distress as if it were his own. He took a deep breath trying to dispel it like it was smoke in his lungs and he felt Hannah do the same, like she was synchronising her breathing to his.

He concentrated on taking deep calming breaths until he began to feel Hannah relax against him, he moved slightly so as not to disturb her and noticed that she had dropped off to sleep.

Dean leaned back letting his head rest on the back of the Sofa, he had no intention of going to sleep, but he wasn't going to get up and risk disturbing the Doc. It wasn't long before sleep overtook him too.

* * *

**7. 37 am - Newport, Rhode Island **

Dean awoke with a start and was slightly disoriented about where he was. He had fallen asleep on the sofa in an awkward position but someone had put a blanket over him so at least he wasn't cold.

He stretched his neck trying to work out the stiffness in it and looked around. He had expected to see Hannah asleep on the sofa next to him, but the sofa was empty. In fact the whole room was empty. Dean tossed back the blanket and went into the kitchen. Morning sun poured into the large windows and Dean's breath caught in his chest as he saw for the first time, the wide vista of the Atlantic Coast.

Doc's 'cottage' was impressive at night, but during the day it was nothing short of spectacular. She had a complete 180 degree view of the Altantic and the Newport Island coastline and at this time of the mourning with the sun still low in the sky, the Atlantic looked like liquid silver glinting in the early mourning light.

Dean suddenly noticed that the mess in the kitchen from last nights little mishap had already been cleared and a pot of coffee stood hot and ready on the bench. Dean grabbed a mug from the side of the sink and poured himself a coffee. He looked with awe at the Doc's house.

Through a short hallway from the kitchen, was the dinning room and off the dinning room was a set of double doors leading to a deck where a pair of sun lounges and a low table sat. Dean went through the doors, out into the morning air and was struck by the salty breeze that blew in off the ocean. He stood for a moment feeling the sun on his face and smelling the breeze.

He looked over the rail of the deck to a larger deck that could be accessed from the floor below. That Deck was the same width as the house and had a hot tub built into it. Beyond that the land drooped away sharply and he could make out the waves as they beat against the coastline. During a storm, this house would be the most incredible vantage point.

As Dean studied the aspect and layout of the house, thinking of all of the party possibilities that could be had in a place like this, music drifted up to him from the lower levels. Dean had planned to sit out in one of the sun chairs and enjoy his coffee, but the curiosity got the better of him and he decided to go downstairs and see where that music was coming from.

Dean trotted down the stairs into the large room down there. The layout on this floor was fairly open, and he saw how the architecture of the place meant that you could open up the door to the lower deck and utilise the outside and inside space all together.

There was a bar and a full sized pool table off to one side and on the opposite side were large cushioned sofas and a state of the art television and sound system. This house had certainly been designed with entertaining in mind. As Dean came to that conclusion, there was something infinitely sad about that.

Here they all were in this great house were one could throw a killer party and Dean could count the number of people he would invite on one hand. He was pretty sure that the Doc was in the same boat. The only one who had any kind of chance was probably Sam, who still stayed in touch with some of his college friends, but event then he would probably have to stretch.

Dean pushed those thoughts from his mind as he followed the music to the room that he knew was the Doc's Study. The door was open and he could see the floor to ceiling bookshelves along every wall. They even had one of those cool ladders on rails so that one could get to the books on the top shelves.

Dean lent his hip on the door jam and looked into the room. Considering how light the rest of the house was, Doc's study seemed quite dark. There was only one small window, which had an aspect that looked down the Newport Island coast line. In one corner of the room, there was a large oak desk, that Dean knew once belonged to Hannah's father and framing that were two leather couches the colour of wine, that made an intimate space around the desk.

Under the window Hannah sat at the baby grand piano, playing completely oblivious to Dean's presence. Her eyes were closed as her fingers moved over the keys. Dean wasn't sure if this was just a habit that she had while she played or if it was just more comfortable for her injured eye. The Doc's eye had nearly swollen shut and the bruise had turned an impressive deep red.

It was obvious that she had showered and changed her clothes, and her hair sat in shiny waves down her back. Even with the world's best shiner, the Doc had a refinement about her that Dean found remarkable.

Dean recognised the tune that she was playing, although he was sure that he had never heard it before. Like some of the things in Hannah's home, Dean had borrowed memories of them and while it was strange to have memories of things you knew nothing of, there was also something comforting in it. He felt comfortable here, like it was home and yet he didn't really have any idea of what home was, he hadn't had one since he was five years old.

The melody Hannah played reached its crescendo and Dean felt a deep pain in his chest, sorrow overwhelmed him and at the same time, there was laughter and humour and memories of being loved. He had to close his eyes against the onslaught of emotions that hit him, he knew they were not his, but that didn't mean he felt them any less intensely.

Music had always been important to him, brining up memories of his childhood and hunting with his father. That is why he had never really developed a taste for modern music, the soul of the music was in the memories that it invoked and modern junk just had no soul.

Hannah finished the last chord and her head dropped forward as if she was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.

"That was beautiful Doc." said Dean, wincing slightly as her head snapped up in alarm. He hadn't meant to startle her. When she saw that it was Dean she relaxed visibly and gave him a censored smile.

"Your brother's favourite." Dean said knowing without needing to be told.

"It's from the movie 'The Piano'" she said "Michael hated the movie but loved the film score. I never understood how he could do that." Hannah smiled longingly at the memory of her brother. "I hope I didn't wake you?" she said as a sudden afterthought.

"No" said Dean holding up the coffee mug "I smelled the coffee."

Hannah went to rise from the piano, but Dean wanted her to play on.

"Play something else." He prompted moving into the room to try and encourage her.

Hannah looked slightly taken back for a moment "Like what?"

"I don't know? Anything! Play your favourite." he said

Hannah settled back down on the piano stool, her head cocked in thought for a moment and then she placed her hand caressingly on the keys.

"What about this?" she said and her left hand began a gentle dance across the keys to start the song.

Dean leant on the piano watching her fingers on the keys until he realised that he recognised the tune that she was playing, and this time it wasn't someone else's memory, he actually did know this song. He straightened sharply listening harder, he was sure he recognised this song and it thrilled him that she had picked something that he would know.

He turned his ear toward where the sound resonated in the deep body of the piano in an attempt to pick the tune better. There was no doubt, he recognised it, but played on the piano it sounded different.

"Holy shit" he exclaimed as knowledge flooded him "That's Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters'!"

Hannah chuckled slightly at his exclamation, but didn't stop playing. "I love Metallica" she confessed "They've been a closet favourite of mine ever since I heard the S&M album."

Dean screwed his face up "Nah Doc! If you want great Metallica you need to get the early stuff, 'Master of Puppets', '…And Justice for All' and my personal favourite 'The Black Album.'

Dean's enthusiasm made Hannah's smile broaden, even though it made her cheek and eye ache. "I see that you're a Metallica connoisseur then. I have to confess that after hearing S&M, I went out and bought the entire back catalogue and nearly played it to death."

Dean inhaled a deep calming breath and looked at Hannah with renewed appreciation. He had a thousand questions that he wanted to ask her, but a knock from the door prevented him from doing so. He spun around at the sound and saw Sam standing in the doorway, his hair damp from a shower and a fresh set of clothes on.

"Um, I'm sorry to interrupt" Sam began "But our other guest has woken up and he is freaking out a bit."

Hannah got up from the piano and moved quickly to the door, walking only feet behind Dean.

"How'd he seem." asked Dean "Was he all Linda Blair or was he normal."

Sam shot Dean a look over his shoulder as he hurried up the stairs. "I didn't go in there, I only heard him."

"Yeah and what did he sound like?" persisted Dean

"Like a young guy who just woke up in a strange house tied to a bed." replied Sam drolly

The trio hurried up both flights of stairs, Dean checking to make sure his gun was loaded and ready as they went, when they reached the top Hannah stood outside the door. They could hear whimpering and crying from within and Hannah exchanged looks with both Sam and Dean.

"Mike" she said trying to make her voice sound calm, but Dean noticed that she held onto the door handle with a white knuckled grip. "Mike its Hannah, can I come in?"

"Where am I?" whined the response from the other side of the door.

Hannah opened the door and moved into the room. She had a heartbeat of hesitation as she laid eyes on the body in the bead, which didn't go unnoticed by the brothers, but she recovered quickly and continued into the room standing at the foot of the bed.

"How are you feeling?" she said gently as she looked at the tear streaked face of the young man in the bed.

"Why am I tied to the bed?" he asked as he watched nervously on as Sam and Dean positioned themselves on either side of the bed.

"Well you kind of had a Mr Hyde moment last night pal and gave your host that world class shiner" said Dean studying the young man "Which I think is down right ungrateful and then you tried to shoot me, which I really take exception to. So I tied your ass to the bed."

Mike looked bewildered his eyes travelling from the faces of each person in the room looking for confirmation for this wild story, until they fell on Sam's. His brow knit together as he studied Sam for a minute.

"Who are you?" he said, his voice showing a measure of calm that his face did not reflect.

"I'm Sam." replied the taller Winchester looking down at the young man with intense eyes. The Sam of old may have been sympathetic to the young man's plight, but the Sam that stood before him now was harder and less empathetic to someone who had tried to shoot his brother.

"Now the question of the day" interjected Dean "Is if we untie you, are you going to go berko and make me shoot you, or are you going to be cool?"

"I'll be cool" whimpered Mike, repeating it a couple of times for emphasis.

Dean looked to Hannah to make sure that she was alright with that and she gave him and almost imperceptible nod. He was impressed at how she was holding up. Generally it wasn't easy for a victim to face their attacker, but Hannah seemed to be doing it with her trademark stoicism. Dean did notice however, that when they started to untie the knots holding Mike in place, Hannah had strategically moved to put Dean in between them.

As Mike waited for the ropes to be untied he looked at Hannah, studying her face.

"Did I do that to you?" he asked, his voice filled with both disbelief and disgust.

"Yes" said Hannah quietly, but for some reason she couldn't hold the intensity of his gaze, so she looked down at where Dean was working on the ropes.

"I'm sorry" Mike said weakly "I don't remember doing that."

"What do you remember?" asked Sam, finishing with the ropes at Mike's arms.

The boys face clouded over. "Not much" he said quietly lost in thought "It's like a really bad dream. First that thing took over my body and it made me do things…things I didn't want to do. Then I remember you." he said looking at Hannah "I remember your voice and you patching me up and then I remember dreaming about the jocks who used to bully me at school."

Mike eyebrows drew together in concentration. "I dreamt that my coach showed up and said that as punishment for their bullying, I should do to them what they did to me. Well I did and when they got really angry and fought back, the coach gave me a gun and told me to shoot them, I didn't want to but they were running at me, so I shot them."

Realisation dawned on Mike and his face visibly paled as he sat up in the bed absently rubbing at his wrists. "That wasn't a dream was it? I was really shooting at you wasn't I?" Mike looked pleadingly at Dean, hoping he would deny it but knowing that he wasn't going to.

"That means…." he said covering his hand over his mouth as he looked at the Doc, his eye widening with the horror of what he knew he had done.

"Mike" said Sam sharply "This coach in your dream. Did he tell you what to do? Did he put you up to it?"

Mike didn't speak he just nodded.

Sam looked at Hannah "After you were taken out of my dream last night, I had a rather interesting visitor myself."

Hannah's head cocked at that her mind whirling into action as she considered the implications of what that meant.

"What? You think it didn't want me there, so it took me out of the equation using Mike?" she questioned.

Dean took two steps backwards looking between Hannah and his brother "Hold on a second, you were in Sam's dream?"

Hannah and Sam ignored Dean, both consumed by the train of thought that this was taking them down.

"Makes sense doesn't it?" said Sam not breaking eye contact with Hannah

"Yes I suppose it does" Hannah replied absently "But to what end?"

At this Sam's face looked blank and he shrugged slightly, then both turned to look at Dean.

"Hey" he said holding up his hands in front of him "Don't look at me, I don't even know what the hell is going on."

Mike shifted to the side of the bed, reminding everyone that he was still in the room and at his sudden movement Hannah took and unconscious step closer to Dean. The tiny gesture sparked something in Dean's male pride and he looked at her smiling in a reassuring way as if to remind her, that nothing was going to happen to her while he was around.

"We should check on Mike's dressings" said Hannah trying to keep her fear at the very idea out of her voice.

"I can do that" volunteered Sam and Hannah smiled at him gratefully.

Sam helped the young man out of bed and walked him to the bathroom, while Hannah and Dean headed down stairs.

"Doc, this is a whole new level of weirdness, even for us?" muttered Dean

"Have you ever come across anything that can manipulate dreams?" asked Hannah, her academic tone falling into place.

"Nothing beyond Freddie Kruger." replied Dean

" I know of a few references where people have been give prophetic messages or images of the future in their dreams but I've never heard of anything that can control dreams or more frighteningly control a person through their dreams. I'll have to hit the books after breakfast."

"Breakfast." said Dean longingly suddenly realising how hungry he was as he followed Hannah into the kitchen.

They chatted together as Hannah made breakfast. Dean rather enjoyed this little domestic ritual. Hannah would give him jobs to do and he would finish them and then pester her until there was something else that he could do. He had lived his entire life on the road, so he almost never cocked, if it didn't come out of a packet or a can he was all but stumped, but watching Hannah work gave him a peculiar satisfaction.

As Hannah was plating up the food, Sam emerged with Mike. The young man certainly looked better for having showered, but his eyes were haunted and his gaze was always fixed on some distant point until someone called his attention. Sam and Dean exchanged worried looks.

They felt bad for the poor guy. Most people lived in the delusion that the world was essentially a safe place to live, but the reality was that it was dangerous and human beings were well down on the universal food chain. People who had to accept this knowledge after a lifetime of delusion often had a hard time of it.

As the others ate, Mike just stared out at the ocean almost oblivious to the food in front of him. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked and all three stopped eating and looked at each other slightly bemused.

"I'm assuming that you have a home somewhere?" said Hannah looking to Sam for support. Sam had after all spent the most time with the young man, but he couldn't really help Hannah so he just shrugged and took a sip from his coffee.

"I have a place in New York. I lived there with my girlfriend Lala." Mike said his voice strangely hollow.

"Would you like to call her?" said Hannah

Mike looked up at her his eyes filling with tears. "I think she's dead. I think I might have killed her."

Hannah straightened in her chair and both Dean and Sam stopped eating at Mike's revelation.

"I don't know?" he wept "I kind of remember it in my dream, but it wasn't me, but if I did all those things to you, then I must have killed her."

"I'll go check it out" said Sam, taking his plate and hurrying away from the table.

Dean put his knife and folk on his plate, he hadn't finished but he couldn't just go on eating in the face of the possibilities that awaited them, so he looked at Hannah. She seemed distressed by Mike's revelation and Dean could understand. She was empathising with the young man and she knew intimately what he was going through.

"Mike" said Dean "Just hang tight here, and wait for Sam."

Dean stood picking up his plate and Mike's and he watched as Hannah followed his lead and picked her own plate up. They moved quickly into the kitchen where Dean deposited his load beside the sink and turned to take the plate from Hannah.

"Well this is a complication we weren't expecting." he said in a hushed voice.

Hannah just looked at him and nodded briefly, but Dean could tell by the way that she was avoiding eye contact with him that her mind wasn't really on what he was saying.

"Doc?" he said "You OK?"

Hannah looked him square in the eye, her own eyes switching from blue to swirling silver, but it was her simple answer that made Dean nervous.

"No" she said and Dean suddenly saw the depth of the internal battle that was being waged inside her.

"That boy is in exactly the same position that I was in two years ago." she said trying desperately to contain the maelstrom of emotions that was building up inside her "And my first instinct was to turn him over to the police. I know I should help him and I understand his position intimately, but I just can't quite move past the fact that he hurt me. I never knew I could be so petty."

Dean was taken back by the Doc's admission. It had been the last thing he expected to hear from her, but as she spoke it, he could completely understand her sentiment. Before he could speak Sam came into the room holding his laptop open to and article from the NY Daily News.

"Lala Hendrich was found murdered in her apartment two nights ago." he said turning the screen towards Dean and Hannah. "Says here she had been raped and then beaten to death and that police were on the lookout for her boyfriend who hadn't been seen since the night of her murder."

Dean hung his head, not only had the demon ruined Mike's young life, but it had also taken the life of his girlfriend in the most hideous and brutal way. At reading the article Hannah put her hand protectively to her throat, but she couldn't speak.

Sam's ears pricked up as he heard the dinning room doors open. A look of alarm passed between the trio and they raced in to where they had left Mike. He was no longer sitting at the table where they had left him, but had gotten up and let himself onto the deck.

Sam was the first to get into the room and he only had time to see the young man climbing up the rail that went around the deck before he threw himself off. Sam could see his intent clearly, and cried out in the hopes that he could buy enough time to get to him, but they were all too late.

Sam, Dean and Hannah raced to the rail and looked over in time to see Mike's body ricochet of the jagged coastal rocks before it plunged into the dark waters of the Atlantic. Hannah put a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry and Sam let his head drop forward in defeat.

"God damn it." yelled Dean striking the railing with his fist in frustration

"Why?" said Sam searching the surging ocean for any signs of Mike's body.

"Because sometimes the prospect of living with the things you've done is worse that the prospect of hell." Hannah said her voice tortured.

Dean looked at her, he was feeling as she felt again and her guilt and anguish were nearly overpowering him. He felt like he was suffocating and his flight instinct rose up sharply within him.

He turned away from the banister, stalking into the house on purposeful legs. He heard footsteps behind him but he didn't turn he just kept walking.

"Dean?" said Sam catching his brother roughly by the arm. "Where are you going?"

Dean turned angry eyes on him. He wasn't angry at Sam, but he could feel the frustrated pressure building up inside of him and if he didn't get out of there soon, he was going to take it out on those closest to him. Dean shrugged out of his brother's hold.

"I'm going out." he said barely restraining his rage, then he gathered up the keys to the truck and stormed out of the house. He felt Sam's eyes on his back the whole time, but he never looked back.

Sam hurried back out to the deck where he nearly crashed into Hannah as she was walking in. Her face seemed composed, almost serene, but eyes betrayed the turmoil of her emotions.

"Do you think we should call someone?" he asked feeling lame for finding nothing else to say.

"Who would we call and what would we say?" replied Hannah, her voice cold and almost devoid of any emotion.

"What? So he just becomes another forgotten casualty of war." hissed Sam feeling his anger rising in his throat.

Hannah caught and held his gaze for a full second, the anger and determination in her eyes almost made Sam shudder at the intensity of them.

"Not forgotten" she whispered "Never forgotten." she repeated before excusing herself and disappearing within the house.

Sam looked out at the perfect morning that was building around him. The sky was turning a rich blue under the intensity of the morning sun, and a soft breeze came to cool his face where the sun warmed it.

He sat down in one of the deck chairs facing out over the ocean. The beauty of the day seemed to be taunting him with the cruel irony of what had transpired just moments earlier. Sam felt adrift on a sea of confusion, which was a state that he seemed to be experiencing more often since Dean had resurrected him. He lay his had back massaging his temples feeling a slight pounding behind his eyes.

He couldn't imagine how, but somewhere between the sun warming his body and the sea breeze touching his skin, Sam drifted off to sleep…and he dreamed.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

**Newport – Rhode Island 9:12am**

Dean speed down the road finding the cadence of the road beneath the wheels soothing. It felt that everything had all gone to shit so quickly, but as distance gave him a little clarity, Dean realised that things had been getting bad for a very long time. For a brief second he had pang of regret that he hadn't stayed in the Djinn's illusion and just lived out the rest of his life happy and content...even if it had been a lie.

Dean dismissed that thought quickly. There was no point dwelling on things that couldn't be changed. He had to face that he was going to have a long hard slog throughout this year and then he was going to send his soul to a fiery hellish torment. This was truly the start of the war and already the casualty count was on the rise. There was no telling how many unknown deaths had already occurred as a result of the demonic horde but Dean knew of at least two young kids who deserved anything in this world but the cards that they were dealt.

The look on Mike's face before he threw himself off the deck flashed in Dean's memory. There was an understanding in his eyes; recognition; an acceptance of his fate and an element that told Dean that Mike himself thought this a fitting punishment for his crimes.

Dean hit the steering wheel as his anger flared momentarily. What sins had the kid been guilty of. This was more a case of some poor shmuck being in the wrong place at the wrong time...basic collateral damage. The needlessness of it ate away at him. He wanted to believe that they could have helped Mike out, but Hannah's words played through his mind.

"_Because sometimes the prospect of living with the things you've done is worse that the prospect of hell."_

With those words in mind, Dean turned his thoughts to Hannah. Her situation had been exactly the same as Mike's, maybe even worse as she had no one who was willing to help her, and yet her outcome had been so much different. Where did she get the strength to resist the temptation just to end it all? Dean knew that she had considered taking her own life, he heard is in her voice when she had spoken those words, but somehow she had managed to look beyond that as an option.

Why? Why was it that when faced with great adversity some would fight and others would just let them selves become collateral damage. It was the same intangible thing that had led John Winchester to become a hunter and not to turn out to be an abusive alcoholic like Max Miller's father. It was that same intangible thing that drove Bobby and Ellen to fight on knowing that the odds were overwhelmingly stacked against them and as Dean considered it, he realise it had been the same thing that had prompted him to make a deadly deal with the enemy just to get Sam back.

Dean had simply followed the coastal road and quickly found himself in the heart of the small town there. He stopped, watching the pedestrians cross, blissfully unaware that they were all walking blithely through a war zone. He watched as a little girl walked hand in hand with her mother, her mother smiled down at her as they crossed and the small interaction reminded Dean exactly what he was fighting for.

Yes it was tragic what happened to Mike but Dean realised that he couldn't afford to waste his energy on single losses. Of course he understood that he should never loose sight of them but there was a bigger picture to be considered here. If he took every death so hard his anger would cripple him in a few months and the war would be far from won. He had sung the same tune to Sam just after Jessica had been killed, and now it looked like he would have to take a leaf from his own book. However it was certainly easier said than done.

Dean took a deep cleansing breath and pulled away from the traffic lights, he followed the road unsure of where he was going, but happy just to be driving. Everything always seemed a lot clearer behind the wheel. Maybe that was just what he was used to, but the hum of and engine always made everything better. He did however miss his Impala and of course the box of tapes that lived behind the drivers seat.

Dean turned on the radio and switched between several stations until he found something that he could stomach, and then he followed the signs along the costal road to a lookout on one of the headlands. As he climbed the hill the Atlantic Ocean and the coastline spread out before him in all of its magnificence.

He pulled the truck over and stood at one of the lookout points. The opulence of the properties that were built behind him seemed insignificant to the grandeur and power of the ocean. He opened both doors of the truck, turned the radio up and climbed up on the hood of the truck, resting his back against the windscreen.

There was salt spray on the wind, carried up from the massive wave that pounded against the headland. He let that douse the fires of his anger as he sat there and contemplated the year that was ahead of him.

* * *

Hannah felt sick to her stomach as she walked through the house to her study, she closed the door not wanting to be disturbed by anyone and she sat down at her father's desk. She scrubbed a hand across her face battling to contain the tears that had built up behind her eyes.

She rested her head in her hands, massaging her temples. Mentally she berated herself, what good was having all of this power, all of these gifts at your disposal if you couldn't prevent innocent people from getting hurt.

She had made a vow that she would never allow what had happened to her happen to any other living soul, but today she realised that was a vow that she could not possibly keep. She had battled to remove all of the grimoires from the equation, but it didn't matter, people were being exposed to the demons anyway. Good people, people with a future and a girlfriend and an apartment in New York.

Her heart broke as she considered Mike's girlfriend. She died thinking that it was Mike that had violated and killed her when in fact Mike was as much a victim as she was. Hannah had often held on to the fantasy that at the point of their death her family had realised that the thing killing her couldn't possibly have been Hannah, but the shock of Mike's death had shaken her to her very core.

A part of her practical academic brain, considered what Mike had done had been ultimately the best thing that could have happened for them. They were not entirely sure what to do with him and that he would have been a wanted man, made it that much harder to help him. His death had saved them a huge amount of time and effort that could be better applied to the wider problem at hand.

Hannah cursed herself for those thoughts and wondered at what point her compassion had died. She felt shame burn in her cheeks. She had seen Dean's reaction and knew how deeply he had taken Mike's death and the fact that she could even be considering an upside to the young man's untimely demise made her cringe inside. What would Dean think of her if he even knew that she was entertaining ideas like that?

That thought bought Hannah up short. She had never been one to worry about what others thought of her. It had been an uncharacteristic position to take given her wealth and her social standing, but it was one that Hannah had adopted as a girl. She had always cared for her families good option, but beyond that she never really thought about anyone else until know.

Hannah thought on it, needing to understand it in the same way she needed to understand mathematical equations and philosophical principals. The short answer was that Hannah admired Dean. To a certain degree she admired Sam as well and what they were both trying to do, but it was much harder to admire someone who you feared.

Dean on the other hand had selflessly given up his soul for his own brother. He lead without questioning why that burden had fallen to him and with no fancy powers, he willingly put himself in situations where he was more often than not 'out gunned'. Hannah knew that he carried fear within him, but he often pushed it aside to help others deal with their own and he was loyal almost to a fault. He had put aside his own ambitions to support his father's, a legacy which both Winchesters could have let die with John Winchester but didn't.

Deep down, Hannah aspired to be like Dean. He was strong and courageous, quick witted and capable and quite frankly she was very glad that she had the good fortune to fall into his fox hole for the coming war.

She sat up straight in her father's chair, a new resolve coursing through her. She would find a way to save Dean, or she would die trying. There was no such thing as an acceptable loss, but the fact of the matter was that in the large scheme of things, Mike's death didn't ultimately affect what they needed to do and what they needed to achieve. Hannah vowed that she was going to make certain that his death was not in vein, by focusing all of the emotions that he provoked in her to finding a way to save Dean. If they were to loose Dean, the war would be as good as over.

* * *

Sam felt the breeze against his face, he opened his eyes and looked down the infinite stairwell that made his stomach churn in recognition. He was balanced precariously on one of the banisters that overlooked the stairwell and as soon as the realisation assailed him he overbalanced falling hard on his back on the walkway beneath him.

He groaned as he rolled to his side. The sound of laughter made him instantly alert and he sat up quickly, making his head swim for a moment.

"And last time we spoke, you were so eager to throw yourself over." said the voice as it climbed the stairs.

The words it spoke were disturbing but the more disturbing thing was the person who spoke them. A perfect replica of Mike walked up the nearest set of stairs and into Sam's view. Sam climbed slowly to his feet, watching the young man as he approached.

"Do you like my new outfit?" it said running hands over Mike's body, like a tacky game show model. "I figured that seeing that its owner wasn't using it, that he would mind if I borrowed it."

Sam stood his ground as the visage of Mike walked closer.

"Who are you?" said Sam, his face and voice turning hard.

"Sam, Sam, Sam" the entity chided rolling its eyes "We've been over this. I'm a friend."

Without coming closer, the copy of Mike swung itself on one of the banisters support posts so that it was now standing on the banister in a perfect imitation of the position Sam had found himself when he became conscious of his surroundings.

The young man looked down at Sam a strange smile coming to his face. "I can see why he did it. I never did understand the appeal before, but standing up here, feeling the wind against your face, it is kind of nice."

Sam tried not to let the entities words affect him, but he could feel the anger rising in his throat.

"The last thing that spoke to me in a dream was a demon…is that what you are?" he asked biting back the scathing words that he was itching to say.

"No the last thing other than me that spoke to you in a dream was Hannah Riordan. Are you telling me she's a demon?"

Sam let out a derisive snort and folded his arms across his chest.

"Are you trying to be deliberately evasive or are you just trying to piss me off?"

The visage of Mike looked at Sam over his shoulder, warbling slightly in his precarious position as he did so. It pulled itself up onto the balls of its feet and pivoted so that it was standing like a tightrope walker on the banister, then with maddening slowness it picked up its back foot and placed it in front of its other foot.

"You're the one who is answering a question with a question." it said in a sing song voice as it took more careful steps along the banister. Before Sam could argue it gave him a Cheshire cat smile and then recanted "Come to think of it, I sort of answered a question with a question didn't I? So I guess my answer would have to be a little of both"

Having reached the next support beam, the visage of Mike pivoted carefully so that he was facing the way that he had just come.

"Sincerely Sam." it said looking across at him as it took tentative steps along the banister "I think it was more to piss you off. I was a little cheesed that you cut out of our conversation last time. That was just down right rude."

He turned and gifted Sam with a heartfelt smile. "You're magnificent when you get your dander up. When you took out Jay…you were really fulfilling your potential there."

Sam's eyebrow arched "So you were there that night?"

Mike's face turned downcast as a frown creased his forehead "Sadly no. But I did hear all about it. Can I ask you something though, when he was lying there, begging for mercy, how did it make you feel?"

"I didn't feel anything?" said Sam before he could censor himself

The visage of Mike reached the support beam where he had started and he turned so that he was fully facing Sam now.

"And how did you feel when you shot him?" Mike's face seemed entirely too eager for Sam's liking. It spoke to something dark inside him, that Sam didn't want to acknowledge.

"None of your god damned business." Sam snapped frightened by the truth of what he had felt. Killing Jay he had felt justified, but more than that, he had felt powerful, invincible even.

Mike's face fell and he clutched at his heart melodramatically "Now Sam that hurts…really, what a thing to say to someone who is only looking to be friends with you."

It ignored Sam's sneering face and continued with its performance. "I just don't think I'll be able to go on…I'm going to end it all."

Before Sam could speak the creature masquerading as Mike pivoted a full 180 degrees and launched itself out into the stairwell plunging down into the bottomless darkness. Sam raced to the banister, his heart in his throat. He knew intellectually that this wasn't Mike, but just seeing the copy of Mike throw himself off the banister was too close to what had actually happened, and it made Sam's chest burn with pain.

He leant far out over the banister watching the body disappear into the darkness. His attention was so rapped that he wasn't even aware of movement coming up next to him until he felt hands give him a light shrug.

"Made you look." said the Mike copy as it snuck up beside him.

Sam clutched at his chest as his lungs refused to work out of shock.

The Mike copy laughed raucously, holding its ribs as if the action caused it pain. "Oh Sam." it said gasping for air "You should see your face. Priceless…just priceless."

Sam felt the rage boil up inside of him. He felt it in his chest, in the back of his hand and in the fist that he had balled up. Without a second thought he pulled his arm back and let his fist fly. It caught the Mike copy clean on the chin as he doubled over with laughter, making him stager back a few steps.

Sam didn't allow him any measure of relief; following his first punch with a swift left jab that snapped Mike's head back sharply; again the Mike copy staggered back a few steps. Sam lashed out with his legs, planting his foot in Mike's stomach and pushing him off his feet. He fell back awkwardly, sprawling against the staircase that had risen up behind him.

Sam moved over him, his mind in a white haze of rage as he pulled is fist back for the finishing blow.

"There he is." said the battered image of Mike, almost so softly that Sam didn't hear him "There's my killer."

Those words bought Sam up short, where nothing else could have. They were so reminiscent of the yellow eyed demon, that Sam found himself checking the pupil colour of the young man that was sprawled beneath him.

"Come on" the Mike copy almost pleaded "Finish me off. It will make you feel so much better."

Sam backed away for him as if he had been burned.

"No Sam…Don't go denying who you are." said Mike pushing his body up to rest on his elbow.

"This isn't me." spat Sam, but it lacked conviction even to his own ears.

"Really" said the copy of Mike, wiping at the blood that was dripping from a cut over his eye "You don't sound so convinced."

"Stay away from me" said Sam walking away with purposeful strides

"Is that anyway to treat someone who is only trying to help you." said Mike coming quickly to his feet and hurrying after Sam.

"Help me to do what?" said Sam swinging around so fast on the Mike copy that is nearly ran into him.

"Help you do what you were born to do." said Mike as if it were the obvious answer.

"You don't know anything about me?" said Sam stalking off.

"Oh I don't know about that?" said a feminine voice that was no longer Mike's. Sam turned sharply and saw his mother standing before him, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders and her night gown a pristine white. His eyes softened as he felt tears build in them.

"Mom?" he said although the words nearly stuck in his throat.

"That's right honey." Mary said smiling gently at her youngest son.

Sam stiffened as reason overload his desire that this really be Mary Winchester. "You're not my mother?"

The smile slid of Mary's face "Are you so sure?" she said her voice turning sad.

"This is just another trick." he said his voice wavering for only a second.

"No trick Sam." she said almost pleadingly "I have always walked with you, search your heart, you know that it's true."

Despite how much Sam wanted it to be true, he knew that it couldn't be. "Missouri said that you had gone."

"Gone from the house" she said reaching up to cup his cheek "But never gone from your side."

"Why haven't you let me know before now that your here." said Sam suspiciously but he leaned into the gentle hand that was on his cheek.

Mary seemed so sad as she looked at him "I wasn't able to contact you on my own, I needed help."

"That's why I helped her" said Mike coming up the stairs behind Sam. Sam looked between the visage of Mike and his mother, his confusion almost overwhelming him. He wanted so badly to believe that his mother's spirit had been with him through all of these trials, but he had grown so jaded over the past year, it was hard to accept it.

"I'm sorry but I don't believe you." said Sam stepping away from his mothers touch. The intensity of it and his desire to believe it was real was too overwhelming. He had gone through his entire life not knowing that sort of kindness and no matter how much he longed for it, he would never let it control him.

"I understand." said Mary clasping her hands together in front of her. Her eyes held tears but she smiled through them. "Will you just promise to come back and see me?"

"Sure" relented Sam "How do I get you back?"

"Just think of her before you go to sleep." interjected Mike "And I'll bring her to you here."

"How can you do that?" said Sam almost snarling

"Now Sammy" said the copy of Mike "A good magician never reveals his secrets."

"Give me one good reason why I should believe you?" said Sam inching menacingly forward.

"Have I said anything to you yet that has been a lie?" asked Mike sincerely

Sam arched his eyebrow, nothing that the entity had said had been proven to be a complete lie, but the stuff he had said about Hannah in their last conversation, seemed somewhat questionable.

"Ok" said Mike, sensing Sam's hesitation "Ok, how about this. A little heads up for you. A demon named Asbeel will be coming shortly to have a crack a getting the grimoires. He's accompanied by the chosen from another generation. They'll try and take you down to get at the grimoires."

"How soon?" said Sam grabbing a fist full of Mike's shirt.

"Honestly, I don't know. I'm not very good with the passing of time outside of this place."

For the first time in all of their conversing, Sam felt an element of sincerity in the entities words and he let the shirt fall from his fingers. He had to get back, he had to warn Dean.

"How do I get out of here?" he said, his words crashing out of his mouth.

Mike's eyes looked over the banister to the stairwell, then back a Sam a smile touching his lips.

"Well you can either go over that way" he said indicating the stairwell with his head "Or you can go out that door and go all the way to the room at the end."

"What doo…." started Sam before he realised that there was a door immediately behind him.

He grabbed onto the handle and threw the door open and charged on long legged strides down the hall. He passed door after door on either side of him, but he kept running. The further he ran, the longer the hall seemed to grow, but he charged on ignoring the seeming pointlessness of this exercise.

When he was out of breath, he slowed slightly holding his side to stop the spread of the stitch that was building there. He held onto the wall for supports and took massive gulps of air into his lungs. As his breathing steadied, he caught sight of the end of the hall and he again picked up his pace running for the door. This time, rather than getting further away, he seemed to be making ground on it, until he was on it faster than he anticipated.

He grabbed onto the door knob and opened the door as he tried to come skidding to a halt. The door swung open, but there was no room beyond it. No room, no floor nothing except the sky and the ocean and a very long drop.

Sam tried desperately to stop himself from barrelling out into the nothingness, but he had far too much momentum behind him and he flung out into the air, ripping the handle from the door as he desperately tried to hang on to it to save himself. He was falling and he was sure that at any moment that he would ricochet of the rocks.

The ocean raced up to meet him and he closed his eyes in anticipation of the impact. But it never came. Sam opened his eyes slowly to see the wide blue sky, with seagulls riding the thermals from the headlands. He tentatively felt around him and realised he was sitting in the deck chair. He let out the breath that had lodged in his chest and he hurried out of the chair pulling his phone from his pocket.

Dialling Dean's number on instinct he felt comforted when he heard his brother's voice on the other end.

"Dean" he said firmly "You need to come back now. We got trouble."

Dean didn't argue, nor did he question Sam. He just acknowledged that he understood and hung up the phone.

Sam hurried inside to find the Doc. He had no idea where she had gone or even if she was in the house, so he stood at the base of the stairs and called her name. When he heard her answer from the floor below he hurried down the stairs nearly crashing into her as she was on her way up.

"Sam? What's up? What's the matter?" she said in a rapid rush of words.

"A demon called Asbeel is on his way here?"

"Asbeel?" questioned Hannah, realising that every conversation that had ever been about that particular demon had occurred while Sam was unconscious. "Where did you get that name?"

"I dreamed it?" said Sam, close enough to the truth to make it not feel like lying and evasive enough to keep his source hidden.

"You dreamed that Asbeel came here?" asked Hannah her face crumpling awkwardly with her swollen black eye.

"Yes." said Sam feeling his patience start to flee him.

"When?" asked Hannah searching Sam's face.

"Just then." said Sam shortly, his temper flaring at all her pointless questions.

"No" said Hannah "When is he coming?"

"That's just it" said Sam "I don't know? So if we are going to destroy these grimoires then we have to do it now before he gets here. We can't risk him getting them."

Hannah looked troubled "I think we should call Dean."

"I already have and he is on his way. Now would you quit stalling and take me to see those damn grimoires already."

Hannah looked at Sam and then looked pointedly at where he held her rather painfully on the arm. He followed her gaze and let go of her as he realised exactly what he was doing. He took two steps back from her as of she had burned him and he ran an agitated hind through his hair.

"I'm sorry." he said quietly

Hannah reached out with all of her senses, both natural and preternatural. She sensed impatience from Sam and a healthy dose of fear, but no hostility towards her.

"Alright" she said quietly "I'll take you to see them, but I would prefer if we made no decisions until Dean arrives. Any decision we make may affect him the most."

"Fair enough" conceded Sam as he followed her to the door that led off from the lower level.

From a cunning nook in the door frame, Hannah opened a tiny hidden door and pulled a key out from it. Once she replaced the lid, the panel disappeared instantly into the grain of the wood. She unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a long narrow stairway that seemed to lead directly into the rock face.

Hannah turned on the light and started down the stairs. Sam followed her ducking his head at the closed in ceiling. If the truth be known, he could have walked upright, but the sensation of being enclosed was so great, that he couldn't prevent himself from stooping out of instinct.

At the bottom there was a large metal door. Sam would have bet money on the fact that it was iron, but as Hannah punched in a sequence of number in the keypad on the wall, the door moved into the wall revealing a room the same size as Hannah's library, carved directly into the rock face.

Hannah hit the light switch and florescent lights flickered on revealing dozens of display cases. Sam inhaled his breath sharply as he walked slowly into the room. The display cases held everything from small pieces of furniture; weapons, jewels and of course books.

"What is all this stuff?" said Sam walking forward and laying his hands gently on the first display case.

"All sorts of things" said Hannah quietly although her voice echoed around the stone room. "Some of it is my family's heirlooms, that I couldn't quite bring myself to part with, others are pieces that I have rescued or acquired along the way."

"It must be worth a fortune." said Sam walking slowly to the next case.

"I think it is worth more in sentiment than it is in dollars." Hannah's voice was wistful as she trailed her fingers along the case that Sam had just been studying.

Sam caught sight of a display case on the wall that held and ornate book. He walked over to it, placing his hands gently on the glass. On one page, there was the most beautiful illuminated illustration that he had ever seen, and on the other page, was bold hand lettered calligraphy spelling out some passage in Latin.

"Is this a grimoire?" he said resisting the urge to press his nose up to the glass.

"No" she said with a slight laugh "Far from it. It's a bible, one of the first to come out of Elstow Abbey."

"It's beautiful" said Sam itching to just touch the pages so that he could turn them and find out what wonders where on the other side.

"Did you have this room created specially?" he asked moving on to see what treasures could be found in the next lot of cases.

Hannah shook her head. "The people who built this house, had it made. They were very wealthy, I mean crazy Donald Trump kind of wealthy and they had a large collection of art. The only thing I did was changed the door from lead to iron, and had the vault put in."

"The vault?" questioned Sam.

Hannah pointed to a large panel in the wall that faced the entry way. It had a small electronic pad next to it. Sam walked closer to it and he realised that the whole panel was a giant circular door, a door that had been intricately engraved with glyphs and symbols. As he walked close to the door, he could feel the arcane energy crackle around it.

Sam hesitated as he looked at the door.

"You can feel that can't you" said Hannah, more as a statement than a question. "It's just like the ward."

"Except about 50 times stronger." said Sam as he starred at the massive door.

Hannah nodded pleased that he was getting some finesse with his newly acquired gifts. "Well it's the last line of defence. The door has an iron outer with a titanium alloy core. Dynamite couldn't get this sucker off"

"What is that writing?" he asked, standing close to inspect the door but not daring to touch it.

"Anything and everything I could find that I thought might make any demon think twice before opening that door." she said.

Hannah felt a familiar sensation and she looked up the stairs.

"Dean's back." she said absently

"How do you know?" asked Sam studying her, not only with his eyes, but with all of his 'senses'.

"He just crossed the ward." she explained "His energy feels a particular way and one of the qualities of the ward is to amplify that energy so I can tell who's coming. Can you feel him?"

Dean reached out with his senses. In truth he wasn't sure what he could feel, but he did feel something that was familiar to him. It was kind of like a scent that reminded you of someone in particular. It wasn't overpowering, it was more of a hint.

"That's Dean?" said Sam smiling slightly as he closed his eyes and focused in on the energy.

"Yes" said Hannah quietly "You'll be able to feel his energy when he's close to you, particularly when he is in sight and usually you'll feel him on objects that he owns or comes in contact with. It's like an echo of that person stays."

"Like their smell" said Sam, trying to acquaint it back to an analogy that he understood.

Now that Hannah had pointed it out, Sam was astounded at how sensitively he could feel everyone. Dean had an energy that he equated with leather, like the old leather of a baseball glove. Hannah on the other hand had a very strange energy that Sam could only equate with spices like cinnamon and clove. It was fine in small doses, but too much was overwhelming.

He was woken out of his reverie by Dean's call. Hannah had gone to the bottom of the stairs and sung out to him where they were and Sam could hear Dean's booted feet on the stairs as he came down.

"Holy Manhattan Museum Batman?" said Dean as he took in the sights of Hannah's little treasure trove "What the hell is this place?"

"This is the vault." said Hannah walking back over to the door where Sam stood "I was just about to show Sam the grimoires. Apparently Sam had a dream that Asbeel was coming to pay us a call."

"When?" said Dean, moving fast to join them.

Sam dropped his head slightly "I'm not sure." he said.

Dean patted Sam comfortingly on the shoulder and watched as Hannah stood before the electronic key pad.

"Alright Doc. Show us exactly what demon boy is after." said Dean.

Hannah punched in a set of numbers into the key pad and in.

"Code Accepted" said an electronic voice that nearly made to two brothers jump out of their skin.

"Voice Print Recognition Required." said the voice.

Hannah leaned in close to the key pad and said "Christo"

"Voice Print Confirmed Dr Riordan. Have a nice day." said the electronic voice.

Hannah looked back to where both Sam and Dean were looking at her with wide eyed intrigued.

Dean smiled slightly "Nice Doc, Using the name of God at the password."

"Some Demons are unaffected hearing it, but no demon can say it." said Hannah with a simple shrug "At least none that I've read about."

The vault door hissed like a seal that was being Brocken and the large circular door started to swing out toward where the brothers were standing.

Dean and Sam moved over next to Hannah as the Door continued to move and Sam swore under his breath as he realised the door was a solid 2 foot thick plate that required hydraulic pistons just to operate it.

As soon as the gap was wide enough, Hannah stood back and indicated that the brothers should go in. Dean stepped in his jaw becoming slack and Sam followed soon in behind him.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again." said Dean "Doc you have all the best toys."

Hannah leaned against the massive metal door jam and watched as the brothers looked at the rows upon rows of stainless steel draws. The felt the darkness in her mind, that permanent presence, prick up in excitement urging her to step forward, but she didn't, she wedged her shoulder in the lip of the door jam and every time she had the urge to walk in there, she would press her shoulder into the door jam until it hurt.

Sam ran his hands over the stainless steel draws. At his touch some of the draws hissed and began to open revealing their contents. Sam looked alarmed back at where Hannah stood by the door.

"Its alright." she said "The draws are touch activated. Each draw is vacuum sealed to prevent any moisture from getting in there to damage the books."

"Are you coming in?" said Dean coming up next to Sam to look down at the contents of the draw.

"Not today." said Hannah "I'm not really up for it."

Dean gave her a quizzical look, but said nothing. If he actually had any idea just how tenuous her hold on the darkness that dwelled within her was, there is no way he would let her anywhere near the room let alone in the vault.

Sam and Dean looked down into the steel draw where a leather bound book sat. Sam ran his fingers over the symbols on the front and immediately felt a jolt of energy a soon as he touched the surface of the book. He nearly snatched his had back, but resisted the impulse.

Sam opened the cover, gingerly leafing through the pages that had diagrams relating to plants and animals, the language was one he didn't recognise, but the workmanship was beautiful. It reminded him of Leonardo's anatomical studies. It had that same quality to it, like this was more of a study manual or an instructional document than the bible that he had seen out in the display case.

Sam closed his eyes feeling the books pull on his energy, it was not draining him, more calling to him offering him, power and wisdom beyond anything that he could fathom. He ran his hand over the pages, savouring the tactile quality of the rough hewn paper and the energy that travelled through it. Hannah was right, there was nothing intrinsically evil about these books, but he understood how they could be used for evil things. Just being in contact with it, Sam could feel the well of energy boiling up inside him.

Dean stepped back, having lost interest in the book that Sam was studying. He couldn't feel the nuances of energy that crackled through it, so he had no way of appreciated it in the same way that Sam could. He just walked around the vault counting the draws.

"Do each of these draws have a grimoire in them?"

Hannah shook her head "No, not all of them are full. There are only 42 in there."

"I take it there are more in the world though?" Dean said opening a draw on the opposite side and inspecting the book that was in there.

"Yes, these are only the ones that I could access. There are others in the Vatican library, in the great libraries in Venice and Barcelona. Even the British Museum has one or two in their collection."

"You couldn't get at those?" he asked pushing the draw in an watching as it automatically expelled all the are from within with a loud hiss.

"My money and influence can only get me so far." said Hannah "And most professionals wont touch the security in places like the Vatican or the British Museum."

"Professionals?" asked Dean going back over to see what Sam was doing.

"I didn't exactly obtain all of these in the most legal of ways Dean. Those of which I didn't acquire myself I got assistance from professional thieves."

Dean leaned back looking at her "Doc…major larceny! I'm impressed. I thought Credit Card fraud was bad, but this takes the cake…and here I thought you were all prim and proper. Go on, shatter my delusions why don't you."

Dean smiled a crocked smile at her, trying to break some of the tension that was thick in the air. Humour was Dean's tried and true defence and he was trying it now for all it was worth. He could tell that being down here was really hard on the Doc, and he knew that the prospect of destroying these books was even harder.

"Alright" he said "How do we go about it?"

"Go about what?" said Sam absently; still leafing through the grimoire he had started with.

"Destroying them." said Dean looking at Sam under his raised eyebrows "That is what you wanted right?"

Sam closed his eyes and he closed the book with infinite care. He reached out with his senses and he could feel every book where it sat in every draw. The potential in here overwhelmed him and bought him a sense of fear all at once, but he now understood Hannah's position. He felt empowered around these books and he could no more destroy them, than he could kill his own brother.

"No" he said quietly "Hannah's right. If there is a way to get you out of your deal, we'll find it here."

"Sam" said Dean sternly turning his brother around so he could look him in the eye "Are you sure?"

Sam looked first at Hannah and then to his brother. "We have to make sure no one gets their hands on these, but I can't destroy them. Not when they might save you Dean."

Dean nodded in understanding. Ever since Hannah had suggested that there might be a solution in here, he had kept a firm grip on his hope not wanting to build himself up only to be disappointed, but hearing Sam say it too, bought him a sense of faith that there may still be a way to get out of his bargain.

"Ok" said Dean "Let's turn our attention to Asbeel" With that he gave Sam a gentle shove towards the door and followed him out so they could reseal the vault.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**Newport – Rhode Island – 1:57pm**

Hannah led Dean and Sam to her study and sat them down on the leather couches next to her father's desk.

"Sam, why don't tell us exactly what happened in your dream, it may help us prepare." she said reaching over a grabbing a legal pad and a pen.

"Well I don't really remember a lot." said Sam, not wanting to lie, but not comfortable about revealing the truth.

"All I can remember is impressions mostly. I got the strong sense of a demon called Asbeel."

Hannah looked long at hard at Sam as if she was considering what he was saying.

"What?" said Sam, feeling his anger rise "Don't you believe me?"

Hannah looked away quickly, "No it's not you I disbelieve Sam. I'm just really dubious about any information that we get in the dream state now. I mean we have something out there that can manipulate the dream state and those in it in a way I've never even heard about before."

"Look" said Sam feeling the blood rush to colour his cheeks "This was different. I've had dreams like this before. I know the difference."

Hannah looked up in surprise.

"So precognitive dreaming is something that you have been able to do for a while?" she asked, her voice purely academic, but Sam couldn't help but hear accusation in her tone.

Before he could respond, Dean piped up "Yeah, his visions started out mostly as dreams and then they happened more and more often when he was awake."

Hannah nodded in interest and jotted down a few notes on the legal pad.

"What are you writing?" asked Sam, agitatedly.

"Oh, I take notes." said Hannah dismissively "I'm a compulsive note taker, if I have a pencil and paper in my hand I can't help myself."

"You said Asbeel came here?" interrupted Dean, going over the information in his head.

"I think so." said Sam, feeling his cheeks flame even hotter. If it had been Dean on his own, Sam told himself he wouldn't have any problems with openly discussing the information with him, but because Hannah was here and Sam still held some reservations about her, he was able to justify the deception to himself.

"Like I said, I just got a sense of Asbeel and it bought one of the chosen from another generation."

Hannah's ears pricked at that. "There are other chosen?" she asked

"Yeah" said Sam looking at Dean. He had made the assumption that Dean had told Hannah everything, but it would appear that he had missed some details out.

"The yellow eyed demon said that I was his favourite from this generation, but there were others." said Sam

"How many?" asked Hannah emphatically

Sam looked slightly shocked "I don't know?"

"What's freaking you out Doc?" said Dean watching her agitation.

Hannah rubbed a hand over her face and winced as she caught the swollen flesh of her eye.

"The defences here are all geared towards protection against a demonic attack, but they were never designed to stop an enhanced human being like Sam. If there are others out there with his power, the grimoires are vulnerable."

Both Dean and Sam looked at each other as the impact of what Hannah was saying hit them.

"They would still have to get through the normal security that you have right?" said Dean

Hannah nodded her head "But given their abilities, I honestly don't know how much of an obstacle that would present?"

"Perhaps we should destroy them then?" said Dean and was relieved when both Sam and the Doc piped up in unison to dismiss that as an option.

"We just need to take more precautions. I think we need more eyes." said Hannah

"What do you mean?" asked Dean sitting forward on the sofa.

"Well you obviously can't stay here full time anymore than I can." said Hannah pushing her hair out of her face "I was going to give Adam a call."

Dean let out a troubled breath, his face showing every aspect of how unhappy he was about that idea. "I thought you didn't want to involve him."

"I don't" said Hannah quietly "I really don't, but we are rapidly running out of options. We're facing an army and while I know you have contacts and friends out there, we are grossly outnumbered, and if what you said is true, and there are others out there with Sam's abilities, then we are grossly outgunned."

Dean didn't like the idea of involving another person, but Hannah was right, they would need to build their ranks if they were going to have any chance of standing up against an army, so he kept all of his objections silent.

Hannah made the call, and within the hour the ex-marine was sitting in Hannah's study listening to Hannah as she bought him up to speed on what was going on. Both Winchester's noted that she was strategically evasive about how all of them came to be involved in hunting, but she told Adam about the grimoires and about Mike, and the events that had happened earlier.

After she had finished speaking Hannah paused watching the older man as he processed all the information that she had given him. He nodded once "Alright then." he said in his whisky and cigarettes voice "How do we kill them?" was all he asked.

Sam and Dean exchanged rather surprised looks. Given that he had been told that demons walked freely among them and a war of world ending potential was starting, he seemed to be taken it all in stride.

Sam couldn't help but laugh a little "Forgive me for saying so." he said to the old marine"But you're taking all this rather well. I mean most other people would probably be freaking out about now."

Adam cleared his throat slightly "Son, I have lived my entire life by two codes, the United States Marine Core Code of Conduct and the Holy Bible. I read the bible, not because I think it's a hell of a good yarn, but because I believe in it and you can't believe in the words of God Almighty and ignore the fact that even he has enemies just because it doesn't give you warm fuzzies."

"Fair enough" said Dean trying to curtail a smile from curling his lip "Gunnery Sergeant?"

It was hard to tell if the look on Adam's face was impressed by Dean's knowledge of military ranks or insulted by his incorrect assessment. In fact it showed a little bit of both, until the side of Adam's lip tilted up in a close approximation of a smile to show he was more impressed.

"Sergeant Major actually… but most people who knew me just called me Sarg."

"Alright then Sarg." said Dean, trying to keep his tone light in the face of the intimidating presence that Andy exuded "Why don't you and me discuss the finer points of demon arse kickery, while these two geniuses come up with a plan to save our collective asses?"

"Finally!" said Adam "Someone who speaks my language."

Dean rose and ushered Adam out of Hannah's study but before he made it to the door Sam called out to him.

"Dean, if you're going up stairs, could you grab my laptop for me please?"

Dean did a deep curtsey with a fake smile plastered to his face. "Yes Massa. Isa be getting it for you directly sir." he said "Just make sure you keep it away from Madame Fritz over there."

When Sam looked at him questioningly, Dean pointed to Hannah who smiled nervously at Sam.

"Ahh!" said Adam as if he had some grand epiphany "That's what all the kettles are about. I just thought she had OCD or something?"

Hannah could hear Dean's laughter as he climbed the stairs, and Sam had to work hard not to laugh at the peeved face that Hannah pulled at that little revelation. Then as if it suddenly dawned on him, Sam sobered finding himself alone with Hannah.

"Ok" he said "So where do we start?" he asked standing up from the sofa so that he could use his superior height.

He wasn't sure where all this suspicion came from. She had answered all of his questions and been very forthright with him, but still he sensed something about her, that he couldn't quite put his finger on. It unsettled him.

Hannah followed his movements with scrutinising eyes. "Well, the first reference to Asbeel that I know of is from the first book of Enoch" she said moving over to her book shelves, she slid the ladder around then climbed to one of the upper shelves and pulled a large leather bound volume down.

As she was climbing down Dean came back into the study and handed Sam his laptop then disappeared without a word.

"Should I set up outside?" said Sam, not wanting to interrupt Hannah who had become quickly engrossed in her book.

She looked up looking slightly surprised as if she had forgotten that he was in the room with her.

"Um no" she said mentally having to change pace "Why don't you set up at the desk, the signal from the router tends to be the best there."

Sam looked at her surprised. "I didn't think you would be wireless here?"

"I might blow them up on occasion, but I still have need of computers." she said returning her attention back to her book. "I have found the reference here, why don't you jump on the net and see if you can get any other references and we'll cross reference those. Somewhere in the middle we might find some truth."

Sam sat in the plush chair, plugging the laptop into a power board hidden beside Hannah's desk.

"_And the second was named Asbeel: he imparted to the holy sons of God evil counsel, and led them astray so that they defiled their bodies with the daughters of men."_ Hannah read slowly.

"That doesn't sound good." said Sam watching as Hannah pulled several more volumes out of the book shelf.

"No it doesn't" said Hannah absently thumbing through a thick volume "But it sounds consistent with what happened to Mike, wouldn't you say?"

Sam didn't reply as he turned Hannah's words over in his head. Yes it did sound consistent with what had happened with Mike, and he had started speaking with the entity in his dreams after Mike had removed Hannah from his psyche. Could the entity in his dreams be Asbeel?, And if so, why had he warned Sam that he was coming?

"There could be other demons with that power though right?" said Sam "It is unlikely that Asbeel is unique like that?"

Hannah looked up at Sam over the edge of her book "To be honest, there are so many books about the hierarchy of demons and the 'whose who' of hell, that it would be very hard to say definitively one way or another. For all we know every demon has that capability. Your yellow eyed demon used the dream state to talk with you right?"

"Yeah but not exclusively" said Sam, looking at his internet search and mulling over what Hannah had to say "It was like he used that state if he wanted to talk with us privately or he needed to show us something."

Hannah looked up at him sharply "Show you something? What do you mean?"

Sam realised his mistake immediately. He hadn't told Hannah about the fact that the yellow eyed demon had showed him the night that his mother had died. For that matter he hadn't even shared that detail with Dean. He didn't know what the implications of his mother recognising the yellow eyed demon were, but he hadn't wanted to burden Dean with it. He had also been too ashamed of the fact that he had demon blood in his veins so he had kept quiet about that whole episode.

Sam thought quickly about how he was going to redirect Hannah's piqued interest. He had found that the best lies where those that were mostly true, so he decided to go with a truth…of a kind.

"Before Jess died, I had dreams of how she was going to die. In the ghost town the yellow eyed demon said that he had sent them to me, to get me on the road and trained for the competition."

Sam hated himself at that moment. Not only had he lied, but he had used Jessica's memory to do it. Hannah felt the waves of self loathing coming off Sam and realised that he still carried a huge amount of guilt about the death of his girlfriend. That she certainly understood intimately. Her face softened.

"I'm sorry Sam." she said with a gentle smile and then returned her attention back to her book.

Internally, Sam felt the tension release out of his shoulders as Hannah returned her scrutiny to something other than him. He shook his head as he thought on his actions. Necessity had meant that he had to be devious in the past, hiding his family and their trade from his friends and loved ones, but he had done that by being deliberately evasive. Now he was outright lying…this wasn't like him or at least it didn't used to be like him.

Sam refocused his attention on his internet search, pushing those troubling thoughts aside. Hannah settled into one of the couches, spreading her books across the coffee table and balancing a legal pad on her lap as she took notes.

* * *

Adam flipped through the pages of John Winchester's journal, looking at the diagrams of the various beasts and supernatural beings that he had recorded on the pages within it.

"The angels and demons I could deal with, but now you're telling me that ghosts and goblins are real too?"

"And Vampires and Witches and Werewolves...Oh my!" said Dean as he made a fresh pot of coffee.

"And all require different methods to kill them?" asked Adam looking over the top of the reading glasses that sat on his nose.

"That's right." said Dean "And not all of them you can attack directly. Take demons for instance, they take up residence in some poor human. When a demon attacks there is still some poor slob conscious under there."

"Damn" said Adam clicking his tongue "and here I was thinking that we could just smite all those sons-of-bitches."

"Sadly no." Dean replied, pouring two mugs of strong black coffee.

"You say your dad taught you all of this?" asked Adam flicking back through the journal.

"Yep." Dean took a sip of his coffee and shook his head slightly as the rich coffee taste hit the back of his throat. "That's the stuff." he muttered.

"Will you forgive me asking why? I know Hannah was kind of cagey about that, but I am curious."

"My mother was killed by a demon." said Dean flatly, waiting for the familiar ache that always tore through him whenever he discussed or thought about those events.

"Oh." said Adam slightly uncomfortably "I'm sorry."

Dean smiled at him. Despite his crabby countenance; Dean couldn't help liking the Sarg. He was a straight shooting, no nonsense, mean talking man of action and Dean understood him. In many ways he reminded Dean of his father.

"Your dad had some training didn't he? What was he? Ranger?" asked Adam, running his fingers over some co-ordinates that John had scratched into one of the pages.

"Marines actually" replied Dean

Adam sat back in his chair, looking at Dean with new eyes "Hell" he said with humour in his voice "your stock just went up with me boy."

Dean snickered slightly and nodded in acknowledgement. For men like Adam, that was as close to a compliment as you were ever likely to get.

"Winchester?" Adam said tapping his chin as he rolled the name through his memory.

"Yeah, John Winchester." said Dean, his interest piqued in case Adam may have known his father. He had never spoken to anyone who had known his father prior to his mother's death and he was interested to hear what the man had been like.

"I don't recall any Winchester's" he said sounding slightly disappointed "Any idea where he was stationed?"

Dean shrugged slightly "I'm afraid after my Mom died, we kind of lost track of those sorts of details. Dad didn't speak too much about his time in the marines, unless it was to teach us something."

Adam nodded knowingly as Dean spoke. "He must have trained you well, you're both still alive."

Dean resisted the temptation to tell the Sarg about the times where he had come close or had actually died, he just accepted the compliment without comment.

"What about you Sarg. You got a family?"

The look on Adam's face was almost like he had tasted something bad at the mention of a family, so Dean could only conclude that Adam was not really living in domestic bliss.

"I got an alimony cheque and two offspring who wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire…does that count?"

Dean smiled at Adam's colourful description, even though he felt quite bad for the older man. It must be hard to dedicate your whole life to a cause and have nothing but memories at the end of it.

"I'm sorry" said Dean quietly.

"Oh hell" said Adam dismissively "I'm not. They're better off without me. When you've been a soldier for as long as I have, the only thing you know how to do is fight, which is great for wars but not so good for families. That's why I'm glad Hannah bought me in, at least I can spend the rest of my days doing something worthwhile."

Interested in hearing this tale, Dean lent on the breakfast counter opposite where Adam sat "So how did you meet the Doc?"

Adam looked at Dean for a moment, closing John's journal and sliding it towards him over the breakfast counter. "A little over a year ago, I got my marching orders from the core. I have to wear spectacles when I read you see, and apparently that affects my ability to identify and kill the enemy deader than hell."

Dean heard the bitterness in Adam's voice; both men understood that being discharged on account of requiring reading glasses was just an excuse to get him out of the core and a paltry one at that.

"I was kicking about, drinking too much, you know… making a general nuisance of myself. Anyway, I got kicked out of this bar in Tulsa at some ungodly hour, when I noticed this woman standing in front of her car, talking calm as can be to this group of thugs."

Adam paused taking a sip of his coffee and Dean nodded seeing the image of Doc standing in front of Charlotte clearly in his head.

"Anyway, I could tell by the way they were surrounding her that this wasn't all going to end well, so I stepped in and taught them some manners."

"I'll bet." said Dean smiling at the idea of Adam beating the shit out of the thugs. The man may have been getting on in years, but he looked as strong as an ox and meaner than rattle snake.

Adam rolled his eyes "The thing was, one of those little punks got a real cheap shot in, with this bloody great big pig sticker. I didn't even notice until after it was all over, but I probably would have died then and there if Hannah hadn't put me in the car and taken me to the hospital. She was so apologetic and insisted on paying for everything." he said as if the very idea of someone looking out for a virtual stranger like that still confounded him.

"She came and visited me every day, so we got to talking and when I was released, she offered me the job and I've been here ever since."

Adam sat back on the stool quickly draining his coffee cup, much to Dean's surprise. The man must have a throat made of asbestos, because Dean could only sip at the scalding liquid.

"The funny thing is" said Adam taking a paper serviette off the breakfast counter and wiping his lips "She still thinks that I saved her life that night. She hasn't figured out yet that she actually saved mine."

"Looks like she makes a habit of that." said Dean softly and Adam's keen eyes looked up into his in understanding. Both men shared a smile of camaraderie before Adam quickly cleared his throat.

"Well I better make something to eat. I bet you all skipped lunch and if I know Hannah, she'll just forget to eat if she's researching."

Dean walked over to the pantry, pulling out a large tin of salt.

"I'll just double check the windows and door. The last thing we want is something getting in."

Dean swept through the house, checking to make sure that there were salt lines in front of all the doors and windows, then he went through a door just by the front door that lead into the large lock up garage that was nestled under one side of the house.

Flicking on the light switch by the door, Dean's jaw slackened in awe as the florescent lights flickered on, revealing his idea of a dream garage. The garage had room for three vehicles and still had plenty of space for a whole heap of very cool machinery and a sizeable workspace.

If one were to stick a cot and bathroom in the corner this would be Dean's idea of the perfect home. Dean walked over to the tall red tool chest that stood as high as his shoulder. He opened one of the draws to find a socket set beautifully laid out and protected by a moulded foam base. He whistled to himself quietly as he mentally calculated what a set of tools like this would be worth. He ran his fingers over them lovingly and the slipped the draw gently back in.

The space immediately by the door was empty, but he could imagine that is where Charlotte lived when she wasn't out on the road. The middle space had a Triumph GT6 sitting in it. Dean wasn't overly familiar with these cars. There weren't a lot of them in the States, but he could certainly appreciate it as a beautiful car. It was much smaller and sleeker than Charlotte and strangely seemed more like Hannah's car than Charlotte ever would.

Dean knew that Hannah loved Charlotte, but it was more for the connection that it gave her to her brother than anything else. Dean touched the dark green paint that had been polished into a high sheen.

"I wonder what your name is?" He asked to no one in particular as he sat back on his haunches and looked at the slick black leather interior.

The space next to the GT6 had a car lift and a pit sunk into the ground and Dean nodded in appreciation. This garage was kitted out better than a lot of mechanics he had met in his travels. This was intended for someone who was serious about their cars and Dean could appreciate the beauty and dollars that went into setting something like this up.

In one dark corner at the back next to the work bench, Dean saw a small shape covered by a tarp. He walked slowly back to the shadowed corner, lifting the tarp to see what was underneath. Dean wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but the beat up Bonneville motor bike, was certainly not it.

He pulled the tarp back further looking at the bike. It was an 'old school' bike with a fairly small engine, but unlike other motor bikes, the Bonneville body was really light, which meant that it didn't need a lot of grunt to propel it at breakneck speeds.

Some of the engine of the bike looked like it had been cleaned and rebuilt, while the oil and gas tanks still had dings and rust in them. This was definitely a work in progress, but Dean was having a hard time believing that it may in fact be one of Hannah's projects.

It just seemed so out of context to the proper, slightly rigid front that she presented to the world. It was one thing to know about cars, it was another to get your hands dirty working on them. Dean couldn't imagine Hannah dirty ever; let alone working on a car.

He pulled the tarp back over the bike and walked along the work bench. On a small shelf under the bench he found three lever arch folders, neatly labelled 'Charlotte', 'Bonnie' and 'Matilda'.

He looked up over to where the GT6 sat silently. "Well I'm guessing you're Matilda then" he said with a smile as he picked up the folder and flicked it open. The front was a complete set of technical specifications for the car and behind that was a full service history and the names of dealers and mechanics who could supply parts. Dean nodded in approval as he flicked through the folder, if nothing else the Doc was thorough.

Dean replaced the folder under the work bench and headed back into the house, making certain he drew a line of salt in front of the door as he left. If circumstances were different he would have loved to have gotten into the Bonneville or popped the hood on the GT6 and just poked around for a bit, but he had to get his head in the game.

Dean walked back into the kitchen and a pungent odour assaulted him bringing him up short at the door.

"Woo" he said putting his arm up to his face "What's that smell?"

Hannah sat at the breakfast bar, holding a tea towel to her face. "I just came up to get a cup of tea." she almost whined "And now he's torturing me."

Dean walked into the kitchen, where Adam stood in front of several steaming pots looking completely unrepentant.

"Smells bad, but heals good." he said with a slight curl to his lip.

"It would want to." said Dean, moving away from Hannah as the pungent odour made his eyes water slightly.

"Trust me kitten, I've had more black eyes than a prize fighter, and that poultice will take the swelling right out of it. I learnt it from a corporal I was stationed with in Texas; he was part Indian or Mexican or something. "

"Just as long as we're not eating it." said Dean coming to look in the pots, only to have Adam turn on him rather threateningly with a wooden spoon in hand. Dean couldn't prevent the instinct of baking up a few steps, so he went and leaned on the wall near the pantry.

Hannah sat, sullenly in her chair. Her focus tended to drift out to the deck and every time she thought on it, a lump seemed to swell in her throat. It was hard to believe that just hours before, Mike had stood upon it. She had felt so much and so much had happened that it seemed like a really long time ago, but intellectually she knew that it wasn't.

Dean could tell by her body language, that grief was still troubling the Doc. He knew the feeling, but after his drive he had resolutely pushed it out of his mind and was working hard not to let it blind him from what he needed to do. Ignoring the eye watering smell, Dean came and sat on the stool next to her.

"How's it going down there anyway?" he asked quietly, stroking her forearm where it lay on the breakfast bar.

"Tricky." said Hannah on a sigh "The references to Asbeel are few at best. We can find one consistent fact about him being a great manipulator, but beyond that nothing much. And reading with only one eye is starting to give me a headache."

"Maybe you should try and get some sleep before this evening" said Dean gently "You haven't exactly had a lot of it the last couple of days."

"You think they'll come in the evening?" said Hannah watching him out of her uncovered eye.

"Well things that go bump in the day, just aren't quite as intimidating." said Dean with a smile.

"Maybe your right" she said sounding slightly defeated "I just don't want to leave all the research to Sam."

"Well after we eat, I can help him." said Dean with a smile as if that were clearly the only reasonable option.

"Speaking of eating" said Adam "I'm almost done here, so you might want to go get your brother."

In an agile move, Dean slid from the stool and walked to the stairs where he called down to Sam.

"Sammy" he called "Food!"

He heard Sam's acknowledgement and hurried back into the kitchen, unaware of the annoyed look that Adam gave him.

"Son, if I'd wanted for you to yell for him" said Adam setting bowls out on the counter "I would have done it myself."

"Sorry" said Dean, feeling like he was ten years old again.

They heard Sam bound up on long legs up the stairs and soon he walked into the kitchen.

"Holy crap" he said as he walked in "What's that smell."

"Lunch' said Dean wiggling his eyebrows mischievously.

"Shall we eat in the dinning room?" asked Adam picking up a couple of plates.

Sam, Dean and Hannah all turned to look at him in unison. There was something almost disrespectful about eating in there, since that was where they had last seen Mike alive. Their sentiment must have been plain on their faces, because Adam laid the plates on the breakfast counter and without a word, simply handed around some cutlery.

Sam sat on one of the stools next to Hannah screwing his face up at the smell coming from the compress that she held to her face.

"We might put that in the laundry while we eat." said Adam reaching over and the counter and taking the compress from Hannah. He disappeared for a moment and then came back in.

Sam and Dean had gotten into their food with gusto, but Hannah had little appetite, so she merely pushed the pasta around her plate, taking the occasional bite.

"Oh my god, Sarg." said Dean between mouthfuls "What is this? It's fantastic."

"Tortellini el fungi" he said before forking some into his mouth.

"Where the hell did you learn to make this?" said Sam barely pausing long enough to speak.

"Martha Stewart." said Adam with a touch of pride in his voice.

Both Winchester's stopped their eating abruptly and looked up at him in surprise.

"You're kidding?" said Dean trying hard to contain a smile.

"Son, for over forty years the core fed me three squares a day. When I got out the only things I could manage was canned chilli and toast. Martha's Kitchen stopped me from starving to death." Adam said without embarrassment

"Besides, I like that woman." he said with a roguish curl to his lip "She's got chutzpah."

Sam and Dean both laughed slightly but quickly returned to their meals. Dean hadn't realised just how hungry he was until he was eating.

Hannah stood up slowly taking her plate to the sink.

"What's up kitten?" asked Adam watching her through narrowing eyes "You don't like it?"

"No, it was lovely" she said quickly laying a gentle hand on the older man's shoulder "I'm just not very hungry."

"Don't let that go to waste." said Dean eagerly "We'll help you finish it."

Hannah smiled and laid her plate in front of Dean and Sam, who without hesitation hoed into their second helping of pasta.

"Please excuse me." she said, but before she could leave Adam put a firm hold on her arm.

"Go get that compress from the laundry." he looked at her earnestly "I promise you, you won't regret it."

She nodded at him and retrieved the stinking compress, before leaving them all to their meals.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

**Newport – Rhode Island – 3:24pm**

Dean headed down the stairs towards Hannah's study with Sam at his heels. He had to confess that he felt better for having eaten, and despite his earlier objections, he felt better to have Adam there.

Dean walked through the large living area and headed through the door to Hannah's office, but when he spotted her asleep on one of the leather sofa's he stopped short, with Sam nearly running into his back.

Dean had assumed that when she had left them, that she had gone upstairs into her bedroom, but instead she had come back down to the study. A large leather bound book sat in her lap and her head was resting against the back of the sofa, with the compress balancing over her eye. Her deep breaths told him that she truly was asleep.

Pushing Sam backwards out the door, Dean held up his hand to silence his brother's objections.

"The Doc's asleep in there, we're going to have to go somewhere else." he said in a harsh whisper.

"Dean" said Sam incredulously "All of the research stuff is in there, we can't go somewhere else!"

Dean gave Sam and irritated glare before he relented.

"Fine" he muttered in his harsh whisper "Just be quiet."

The two Winchester's walked back into the study, and Sam crinkled his nose as something that smelled oddly reminiscent of week old gym socks assailed him. Tapping Dean on the shoulder he scrunched his face up in distaste.

Dean rolled his eyes slightly and walked over to where Hannah had fallen asleep. With the greatest of care he peeled the compress off her eye, and without even looking at his brother he passed it back to where Sam was standing.

"Great!" whispered Sam holding the stinking wad of fabric like is was a soiled diaper "What, am I supposed to do with this?"

Dean looked at him harshly, holding his finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.

Sam raised his eyebrow in question, the annoyance starting show on his face.

For the second time in as many minutes, Dean rolled his eyes skyward as if imploring for divine assistance.

"Chuck it out." he whispered his volume getting louder in his irritation.

Sam shrugged and went to drop it in the waist paper basket next to the desk.

Dean hissed air between his teeth to attract Sam's attention and divert him from his current course of action.

"Not there genius" he said "Take it out to the trash or it will stick up the whole place."

Sam huffed indignantly and turned on his heel with the stinking package held out at arms length. Dean could hear him mutter as he walked out of the room and he turned quickly to make sure that Sam hadn't woken up the Doc.

"And he's supposed to be the one with brains." muttered Dean as he was certain that the Doc was undisturbed.

Dean took the opportunity to look at the injury to the Doc's left eye. True to his word, Adam's foul smelling concoction had bought a lot of the swelling down and the bruise was turning from a deep red to a purplish black. Dean studied the Doc's face as she slept completely unaware of his presence.

Apart from her black eye, she seemed perfectly serene. Her eyes were closed and her long eyelashes made dark crescents where they rested against her cheeks. The Doc's hair was a deep auburn, as where her eyebrows and lashes, in stark contrast to her creamy white skin.

Giving in to a temptation to see what that skin would feel like, Dean allowed the back of his fingers to brush the silk of her cheek. It was warm and softer than he had imagined and he almost snatched his hand back, feeling them too coarse for such delicate skin, but he didn't. He let them linger against the side of her face and watched as unconsciously the Doc turned towards Dean's gentle caress while she slept.

Dean found himself smiling at that. The Doc was truly a beautiful woman in a way he had never found attractive before. Her designer clothes and tailored look had never appealed to him. He had always found people who looked like the Doc to be stuffy arrogant prats, who spent more time investing in their snobbery that they did in giving anyone around them a chance.

The Doc could sometimes be aloof, but she was never judgemental or cruel. In fact she was the opposite, helping complete strangers for the mere fact that they needed it. Dean thought on what Adam had told him, pulling an image of the Doc in his minds eye, wrestling the larger marine into her car and racing him to the hospital. Then his memory switched to the night where she, with an arm around either brother had help drag them from the woods after they had just had the crap beaten out of them.

Careful not to disturb her, Dean lifted the book that was balance on her lap and he sat done on the sofa next to her, inhaling deeply to catch the meekest hint of her perfume. With all of the spare seats in the room, Dean really wasn't sure why he took the one next to her, but something about her proximity was soothing. As he sat in the seat he let his thigh rest against hers, revelling in the warmth that was emanating from her. He turned the book around and had a look at what she had been researching.

Dean studied the pages, the book was in a language he didn't recognise, so he sighed slightly, and pulled one of the notes that she was using as place holders and slipped it between the pages before closing it and laying it gently on the coffee table.

He picked up the legal pad and looked over the notes, but instead of seeing words he saw funny little squiggles with dashed lines and strange curling characters. Sam came back in the room looking sourly at Dean as he went to sit in front of his computer.

"I tried that earlier." Sam whispered, looking pointedly at the legal pad "She writes in short hand or something."

Dean flicked back a couple of pages and sure enough every page was filled with the same strange script, but much like her handwriting the script was neat and curled with each character having it's own space on the page. Dean couldn't help smiling as he remembered the note she had written in his journal.

Dean laid the pad back on the coffee table and picked up another book hoping to hell that this one would at least be in English. He picked it up turning to the page where the Doc had left small squares of coloured note paper and began reading. He found the language difficult, but her persevered re-reading passages over and over until he was confident that he understood what they were discussing.

Sam tapped away at the keyboard of his laptop, occasionally scribbling a note or two on a legal pad that he kept next to the computer. Every now and then, he would close his eyes and reach out with his mind and see what he could feel within the house. He felt the subtle crackle of the ward at the front of the house and the more aggressive energy of the vault down in the basement. He could feel Adam's energy move around the house above them and then of course there was Hannah's and Dean's energy right next to him.

It was their energy that made him pause for a moment. When they were sitting this close together, Sam was having trouble distinguishing the nuances or their individual energies, they kind of melded together in his mind, and it was only for the sheer fact that he was aware of their physical presence sitting side by side, that Sam was even aware that there were two different energies.

Sam sighed inwardly. If people could be masked by others, that was a real Achilles heel for him. He would never truly be able to trust the impressions that he got. He wondered if he kept practising whether or not that would improve. He returned his thoughts back to the article in front of him and forced himself to concentrate.

Time slipped by and the room darkened as the sun dropped in the sky. Sam sat back in his chair scrubbing his face roughly, trying to diminish the ache behind his eyes. They had been going at this now for a couple of hours, and whoever Asbeel was, he was obviously a master of misinformation.

His origin was sketchy, his exploits convoluted and often contradictory and his powers unclear, but what frightened Sam the most was the lack of clear motivations. He had never been clear on the yellow eyed demons intentions with this plane of existence, but sheer avarice could have explain his actions. Asbeel seemed to be a completely different kettle of fish.

"No luck?" said Dean quietly.

"It's like the proverbial needle in a haystack and the problem is I'm not sure if the needle is even here."

"Don't sweat it Sam" said Dean with a subtle smile "We'll just do what we always do."

"What? You mean die!" hissed Sam moodily

"Well I was going to say 'wing it' but whatever." said Dean returning his attention to the book in his lap. He was determined that he wasn't going to let, Sam's dour mood affect him. While they still had breath in their lungs, they had a fighting chance.

Sam looked over to his brother apologetically; he had been in such emotional turmoil recently and the last thing that he wanted to do was to take it out on Dean. But Dean didn't seem too perturbed by it, he just settled back in his seat, looking briefly at the Doc to make sure he hadn't disturbed her and went back to flicking through his book.

On a whim, Sam punched in the website for the cinemas that had been just down the block from the apartment that he shared with Jess. He just wanted to imagine for a moment that he was just like everyone else and the biggest hassle facing him was what movie he should go and see, he flicked through the reviews of the latest releases and scanned the movie posters that were trying to entice audiences in.

As he scrolled down the screen he saw the ad for the Sunday morning showing of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. It was something of a tradition at that theatre and Jessica had loved going out for breakfast on Sunday morning and catching the early show. It had been one of her favourite movies of all time, and while Sam had enjoyed it, he had not known it off by heart like Jess. She was able to recite the lines almost word for word. At the time it had annoyed him, but now he cherished the memory.

Sam had been with other girls, while they had been on the road, but no one had come close to Jess in his heart. The injustice of her death made Sam's blood burn in his veins. He ground his teeth as he felt the well spring of emotion open up. His chest actually physically hurt as he battled to control his rising anger, but it was growing increasingly difficult, because not only could he feel his anger, but he could feel a raw power, untapped and waiting to be unleashed thinly veiled by his emotions.

He closed his eyes, swallowing hard, to try and push down the growing need to just let go of his control and let the entire venomous energy gush out of him. The swelling of power, pulled Hannah from her sleep, she sat bolt upright, looked around groggily expecting an attack at any moment. The energy was strong, hostile and very close. Dean looked at her in question, but she didn't respond to him she just looked at Sam.

He sat in the chair, his jaw and eyes clenched tight as her fought to contain himself. She could see that every muscle in his body was tensed, yet he sat perfectly still.

"What…" started Dean looking between Hannah and Sam, but he fell silent at Hannah's adamant gesture.

"Sam" Hannah said quietly, her voice slightly croaking from having just woken up. "Control it Sam, take a deep breath and try and get a hold of it."

Sam's eyes flicked open and they burned eerie amber. His look held so much ragged hostility in it that Hannah unconsciously backed away from him.

"Dean." she said the urgency in her voice motivating him quickly into action "Talk to him, if he lets go of his control we could be in a lot of trouble."

Dean knew that Hannah wasn't lying, he could already feel the hair on the back of his arms and neck rising.

"Sam" said Dean forcefully taking his brother's face in his hands and forcing him to look into his eyes.

"Listen to me Sammy." he said making his tone even yet forceful "Focus. Don't let it get a hold of you, ok."

Sam's eyes started to roll back in his head as if Dean's words actually caused him pain, but then he shut them tight and when he opened them, they had returned to their warm brown colour.

Hannah saw the tension drain from Sam's body, and breathed a sigh of relief sitting back down on the sofa and taking a few fortifying breathes herself.

Dean didn't let go of Sam's face, even though he felt the air around him settle. He kept a firm hold on his brother not only with his hands but with his eyes. He searched his brother's face looking for something he could not even define, perhaps a glimmer of the boy he had grown up with.

Sam's eyes welled up with tears, as he looked at his brother and he felt a deep shame, crawling up the back of his throat. Dean let go of his brother's face and pulled him into a tight embrace. Sam clutched at him, feeling the only anchor that he had in his life since they had lost their father. Whatever was he going to do if anything happened to Dean?

Sniffing harshly, Sam pulled himself upright, finding some composure and patting Dean affectionately on the shoulder. A silent communication of gratitude passed between the two brothers and at its conclusion, Dean gifted his brother with a roughish grin. Maybe this wasn't the same Sam who had been killed in a ghost town in South Dakota, but to Dean it didn't matter…this was still his brother.

Hannah felt a swell of energy by the ward and her eyes looked up towards the stairs instinctively. A heartbeat later, Sam felt it too, the tension returning to his body.

"There here." he whispered harshly and the smile slid from Dean's face.

"How many?" said Dean following their eyes, but of course seeing nothing.

"I'm not sure" said Hannah cocking her head in a gesture reminiscent of an inquisitive dog.

"There are five of them" Sam said with authority "No, wait, six of them. Five with very similar energy and one that is very distinctive. And there is something else. It's strange like clumps of statics."

"Does it feel like lots of swarms of bees?" said Hannah, pushing outwards with her own senses to try and get a read on what Sam could feel.

"Yeah" said Sam his voice sounding cold, almost foreboding "What is that?"

"Something without corporeal form probably." replied Hannah irritated that she was unable to feel the energy herself.

"How many of those?" asked Dean sternly.

"I'm not sure." replied Sam, whose face was a picture of concentration. "They are really hard to count."

"Hannah!" they heard Adam call from upstairs, his voice punctuated by the sound of a rifle being cocked "We got company."

Dean looked at both Hannah and Sam, his eyes hard and his lips set in a grim line.

"Let's do this." he said in a voice of determination and led them out up the stairs to where Adam was waiting for them.

"There just hanging back there on the driveway in the shadows. Four of them" he said to Dean as the younger man joined him by the front door.

"They won't try and come past the ward." said Hannah; she looked around herself as if trying to see all sides of the house "They'll be others, trying to find a way in."

"Well we know it can be done." said Dean putting a hand gun in his jeans and picking up the shotgun that rested by the door "Mike made it up to the porch."

"The others won't try." said Sam his voice sounding strangely hollow and far away "They know they can't come close, but they'll want to distract us so that the chosen can get in. We have to find the chosen and take them out."

"And how will we know which one is the chosen?" asked Adam, his eyes shifting restlessly at the growing darkness that was surrounding the house.

"Sam or the Doc will have to identify them." said Dean heading for the door.

Hannah raced forward catching Dean before he opened the door. "Dean, I'm not sure that I can. My senses don't seem to be as finely tuned into this as Sam's. I can't tell the difference like he can."

"Why don't we just take them all out?" said Adam "Avoid the need to have to identify this 'chosen'."

"There are innocent people hosting those demons, we take them all out, we take them out too." said Dean, thinking back on Mike "No! Sam will spot them, won't you?"

Sam nodded, his eyes intense, but his focus off into the distance. Hannah shot a nervous glance at Sam; minutes ago he had nearly been consumed by the well of energy inside him, now they were pinning everything on his ability to control those same powers.

"Sarg" said Dean, his voice deepening and turning forceful "You and the Doc take the house. Don't let anything that isn't Sam or I anywhere near it."

"Yes sir." said Adam automatically, taking up a defensive position on the porch.

"What will you do?" asked Hannah, trying to quell the growing sense of doom that was rising in her stomach.

"Sam and I are going to have ourselves a little chat with these bastards." Dean said, a smile curling his lips as he looked at Hannah. He could feel her growing concern, but she had pulled her mask of indifference over her pretty face and was hiding it well.

"Doc" said Dean pulling Hannah close so that only she could hear his words "If we fail, you need to destroy the house the vault everything like you did back in Iowa."

He looked at her meaningfully, waiting for some acknowledgement that she understood exactly was he was asking of her. She nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was enough for Dean.

Dean indicated with his head towards the door and Sam fell in behind him. Hannah caught Sam's arm looking at him cautiously as if to judge how he might react to the gesture.

"Flare your senses out as wide as you can." she said her voice intense but unhurried "Visualise a spider's web with you at the centre, tune you senses so that you can feel everything that touches it and once you identify the chosen push the message to me, just focus on where I am on the web and send it down the line to me…then I can help you."

Sam held her gaze for a moment and then turned to follow Dean out of the house.

Twilight was falling and the funny half light was playing havoc with what they could see clearly. Shadows danced just at the edge of the light, making it unclear what was just a harmless trick of the light, and what was something more insidious.

As Hannah had instructed Sam to do, she took a moment to centre herself, flaring her senses out like a spider web. She touched the vault, and felt the pulsating of energy respond back at her. She sensed each of the rooms in the house and satisfied that they were all empty, she pushed her consciousness out sideways, so she could monitor the cliffs and the bush scrub on either side of the house.

When she opened her eyes, they swam with eerie silver light. She heard Adam's slight intake of air as he caught sight of her strange luminescent eyes, but he stood rigid and unfaltering, falling in by her shoulder to protect her or fight with her, whatever this evening called on him to do.

"You probably didn't need my help, that night back in Tulsa huh?" he whispered low into her ear.

In spite of the gravity of the situation she could resist smiling at him. "Probably not, but I need it now."

"Amen to that" said Adam, his coarse voice softening slightly on the benediction "Good thing the lord has a plan for us all then."

"Indeed" said Hannah, watching as the two Winchesters walked along the concrete driveway away from them.

* * *

Dean almost ambled up to the fence line, outwardly appearing casual, but his eyes were moving with lethal intensity. He walked up close to the perimeter of the ward and looked at the four who stood in the growing darkness on the other side. He felt Sam take up a position behind him, and took a moment to study the four in plain sight.

The man, who stood forward as almost the leader, looked like a business man, he wore suit pants and a tie, but his sleaves had been rolled up his arms. He had short neat dark hair and probably stood the same height as Dean.

The man that stood at his shoulder was a complete mountain of a man. He wasn't as tall as Sam, but he was solid, his flannel shirt stretched across meaty shoulders and arms. He looked like he would be more at home behind the wheel of a big rig than standing here in Newport.

On either side of the men, two women stood. One was young and had the look of a college student about her, he curling blonde hair pulled haphazardly into a pony tail, her jeans were faded and she wore an overlarge Harvard t-shirt. The other woman was older, probably middle aged and looked like she should be ferrying a dozen children to soccer practice.

Dean shifted the shot gun so that it balanced on his shoulder in plain view and he smiled charmingly at the four who stood stalwartly on the other side of the fence.

"How can I help you?" he said his words cordial where his tone was venomous.

"We have come for the grimoires." said the business man, his accent betraying his Boston heritage.

Dean's grin turned into a full blown smile. "I'll just rush inside and grab them for you, shall I?"

The man's face held shock for a moment until he registered the sarcasm in Dean's voice.

"Bring them to us now, or you will all die." said the man. The three standing with him seemed to leer as if the prospect of tearing them limb from limb was something highly exciting.

"Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt." As Dean spoke, he signalled discreetly behind his back to keep an eye out for the others. Sam had sensed that there were 6 of them including the chosen and it worried Dean that he had only spotted four.

Sam swung his head, checking his peripheral vision, trying to get a fix on the two others. He could feel them like he might feel an eyelash stuck in his eye, but he couldn't locate them. As Dean exchanged barbs with the four at the front, Sam did as Hannah had suggested. He closed his eyes and visualised a web with him at the very centre. The tendrils the flowed from him pulsed with energy and he felt them connect and bounce the energy back at him.

Sam kept that image firmly in his consciousness as he opened his eyes. He reached out with his senses, but the feedback coming back at him was like microphone feedback that wailed in his head. He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to swear, not wanting to show any signs of weakness in front of the four by the gate.

He could feel everything, spikes of energy all around him. It all came back at him, like a hundred voices all with something important to say. His temples throbbed as he tried to cope with the influx of information and he rubbed at them slightly, looking around to where Hannah stood on the front porch.

Hannah tensed a muscle in her jaw the only thing betraying her discomfort. Whether Sam realised it or not, he was screaming in her head at the top of his lungs. She couldn't really blame him, it had taken her months to come to terms with her extra sensory perception and even now it sometimes caused her grief. The one benefit that she could identify was that at least he had discovered how to send messages to her through the energy lines that he had drawn connecting them. Hannah took a deep breath and centred herself.

Sam looked around wildly. He could feel everything on all sides and it felt like it was all closing in on him. He had tried to drop the image of the web from his brain, but somehow he felt like once it was on, there was no off button. Panic started to unfurl in his stomach, until he was suddenly aware of a gentle feminine impression inside his mind.

Sam focused on it, like a lighthouse in a storm. _'Narrow your focus, look at each, assess and prioritise them like you would any adversary.' _Sam's brows drew together in confusion, but then he felt the impression in his mind start with the four in front of him. He knew he wasn't doing it, but as Hannah touched each one through Sam, he saw how she developed the feeling for each individual presence.

'_Some energy will be stronger than others, some will be more hostile, you need to assess which and then move on.'_ Taking his cue from what Hannah had done, Sam began to touch each individual energy signature, he could feel how strong they were, he could feel what their predominant emotion was and to his surprise he could kind of sense their motivation. With this information his brain moved, almost without conscious compulsion and prioritised each threat. He kept the most dangerous at the forefront of his consciousness and the rest buzzed behind that like ambient noise which he could still monitor or tune out at will.

As soon as he began doing that, his senses cleared. It was like someone blasting cold air on a foggy window, it cleared in patches until he could see everything. Sam couldn't prevent himself from smiling. He felt Dean, by his side, Adam and Hannah behind him and the four standing on the other side of the ward. The thing that concerned him the most was the swell of feeling that he got from the scrub on either side of the property. He leaned down and spoke so only Dean could hear.

"They're trying to keep our attention fixed out here." said Sam.

He saw Dean chance a glance to either side of the property. Although Dean didn't have quite Sam's perspective on the situation, he wasn't naive when it came to battle tactics. This was classic 'divide and concur' strategy in play, and looking meaningfully at Sam, he knew they had to get back to Hannah and Adam.

"You want the grimoires." said Dean without humour. "Why don't you come in and get them." With that he had pushed Sam towards the house and both broke into a run.

As soon as the business man saw that he no longer had Dean and Sam's attention, he cursed and from some unseen signal, the four demons split running to either side of the property.

Sam felt the swell of energy and knew that they would never make it back to Hannah and Adam in time. "The sides." he yelled praying that Hannah could feel it too.

Hannah felt the surging energies on both sides of her, her gaze shifting left to right to try and identify the source. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye to her right. Adam saw it too and drew and bead on it down the barrel of his gun. Hannah pushed the barrel up, before Adam could fire.

"Remember there are still innocent people in there." she said, but as the words left her mouth a demon manifested behind her in the shape of a little boy. It looked to defy gravity as it stood on the underside of the roof of the porch and it charged the older man with its features twisted in rage and its fingers edged with wicked talons.

The talons bit into the flesh on Adam's face and knocked him on his back. Hannah turned looking at the child, who if human, would have been no more than three of four years old, and it hissed at her. She narrowed in on the energy and with a well focus thought, the demon dissipated into oily black smoke.

A shot rang out next to Hannah's head and she turned to see a second demon who was trying to attack her from behind, disappear in a cloud of smoke. She looked down to where Adam had fallen at her feet, the wounds on his face oozed blood, but his eyes were keen and hard and the smoking rifle was pulled into the hollow of his shoulder.

"Iron rounds." he said as Hannah helped him to his feet. He quickly reversed her grip pulling her behind him and taking another shot at a demon that ran at them, along the underside of the roof. Hannah looked at him appreciatively and he smiled standing back to back with her as more demons manifested on the underside of the porch ceiling.

As Dean ran he saw Hannah and Adam engage with the demons that were moving in from the sides in dark wisps of inky smoke. 'Sneaky Bastards' he thought as they took advantage of the lack of devil's traps on the underside of the porch roof. He caught motion next to him, but before he realised what was going on, the trucker who had been standing out the front moved with preternatural speed to tackle him before he made it to the front of the house.

Dean went down hard, the air being forcibly expelled from his body. The shot gun he carried was pinned under his ribs, digging into him painfully. He managed to work one hand free and catch a meaty fist before it connected with his face, but for the most part he was pinned helpless under the mass of the meaty trucker.

Sam was aware of Dean going down behind him, his concentration momentarily diverted he turned to look. The web of his senses twanged in warning and he turned to see a man who he had never seen before running at him, howling like a banshee.

The man was too close to Sam to do anything, except take his momentum and roll with it. In a move uncharacteristically graceful for a man of his size, Sam managed to grab the lapels of the man's shirt and sticking his foot into the man's stomach, he rolled on his back, launching the man over his head.

Quickly, Sam found his feet and turned face to face with the Soccer mom who, spat obscenities at his while brandishing a garden ho she had found somewhere in the scrub. He dodged under the wildly swinging ho and looked for any opportunity to take the woman down.

Dean struggled restlessly under the weight of the massive truck driver. He had one hand that was protecting him from the trucker's meaty fist and the other was awkwardly trapped beneath them.

He kicked out wildly with his legs trying to shift the man mountain, but to no avail. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sam pull back one of his long legs and hit the man in the side with so much force, that the sound of cracking ribs punctuated his roll off of Dean.

Dean didn't even get a chance to thank his brother as he quickly found his feet. To his amazement, the trucker had also regained his feet and was circling Dean with evil intent. Absently, Dean noted that the business man stood apart from the melee and he had the briefest moment of wonder as to whether the man hosted Asbeel. Could the man be orchestrating this from his position or was he merely observing.

As Dean ducked under a rather clumsy swing from the trucker, he considered what they were going to do. He didn't want to hurt the man, after all it was hardly his fault that he had become the vessel for some prick of a demon, but as a sharp jab caught him in the stomach, Dean quickly changed his tune. The priority here was just trying to get these people out alive and hopefully not die in the process, after all, he only had 360 days to live and he wanted to ensure that he lived every last one of them.

He lashed out at the trucker, kicking the man sharply in the shins, as the man bent down to protect himself, Dean landed a heavy blow to the truckers jaw. A blow so hard it made the bones in Dean's hand ache. On any other human being that would have laid them out cold, but the tucker merely straightened, and looked at Dean with cold black eyes.

'_Oh Shit!'_ thought Dean as he watched the trucker rush him, his meaty fists pawing at Dean with a renewed ferocity. He was vaguely aware of Sam holding his own against the two assailants who were attacking him, and somewhere just out of his vision he could sense the young college student waiting to find an opening to attack him. The problem was, that the demons were just not going down. They weren't bound by the natural laws of physical response, even in death the demon could animate the flesh and continue to use it.

Hannah and Adam stood back to back, unable to help Sam and Dean as they wrestled with the human hosts on the front lawn of the house. The problems that Hannah and Adam had were that their demons would attack and be repelled either by a psychic blast or one of Adam's iron bullets. It wouldn't destroy them, only scatter their energy briefly, before they manifested again out of range.

Hannah realised that this couldn't continue. She knew that Adam must be running out of bullets and she could feel her own energy wanning as they continued to fight. As soon as they were overwhelmed, they would be dead, and that realisation spurred her on to try something radical.

She flared her senses out momentarily, satisfying herself that no one had been able to get into the house. She realised that the 'chosen' had not yet materialised and she wanted to make sure that they hadn't already found some other way in. Then she narrowed her focus on the demon that was scuttling towards her across the roof, like some hideous parody of Spiderman.

Some of the non-corporeal demons materialised in a form approximating humanity, but this demon mad no such effort. It was a mass of writhing sinewy flesh, stretched tort over impossibly long limbs. Its eyes were hollow sockets and its mouth a gaping maw, hissing fetid breath in her direction. She looked at it, not only with her eyes, but with her consciousness and felt the elements of energy clinging together to give it form.

Even though she had never tried this before, she visualised a shiny film all around the energy of the demon, much like the pearlescent skin of a bubble. She imagined that the skin was impenetrable and could hold the form irrespective of the desire of the demon. The demon seemed to hesitate in its attack for a moment, sensing something different about itself, but then it followed its base instincts and sprung at Hannah.

Hannah caught the creature with her mind, holding it in mid air even as the beast struggled. Realising that it could not dissipate its energy, the demon looked between his captor and the ground, expecting at any moment to be dropped and trapped by one of the symbols painted on the underside of the floorboards. For a moment none of the non-corporeals advanced, watching in macabre fascination as the destiny of one of their brethren was played out.

In a low and steady voice, Hannah began reciting the Aramaic exorcism rite, it was not as long and involved as the Catholic or Sumerian rites, but on demons of a non-corporeal nature, she was certain it would work well. They had no human host to cling to as they were banished so the words of the dead language would cast them out of this realm of existence with great ease.

The captured demon began to mewl like a distressed cat, wailing and braying in a hideous high pitch that hurt Hannah's ears. But she gave it no respite, she continued, her voice rising in volume to combat the noise. Eventually, the demon began to disintegrate as if it had been burned to ash and the ash was now being discarded by a strong wind.

As Sam fought, there was a consciousness in him that remained calm like the eye of a storm. He had felt what Hannah had done, and registered how she had achieved it. Mentally he filed that away in his knowledge bank and then he flared his consciousness out again, hoping to increase is knowledge and understand how to use the powers that he had been given.

As Sam directed his consciousness out he felt a presence flare at him, like an incessant blip on a radar screen. It was unlike the 5 other energy signatures that he could identify in the humans that were brawling with them on the front lawn. That meant only one thing…'the chosen'. Somewhere hidden in the shadows near the garage 'the chosen' had been waiting silently. After seeing what a threat Hannah was to its non-corporeal soldiers, 'the chosen' had directed all of the non-corporeals to attack her. There were three things about this that struck Sam.

Firstly, Sam now knew where 'the chosen' was. Secondly, Hannah was in immediate danger and finally, just in the same way that he had learnt from Hannah how to manipulate his senses and how to capture the non-corporeals in a physical form, Sam now knew how to issue commands to the non-corporeals. Sam made a split decision, deciding that the priority now was to alert Dean and the others to the presence of the second 'chosen'.

'_The chosen is in the shadows, by the garage' _

The thought formed in Sam's mind, but before he could say anything he caught a sickening blow to the stomach, making him drop to his knees.

Dean thought he heard Sam's voice, although given the intensity of fighting that was going on, he wasn't sure. More than hearing words, he had the impression that 'the chosen' was over near the garage.

"Sam, are you sure?" yelled Dean, tripping the college student who had just charged him with wild eye rage.

Sam seemed surprised to hear Dean ask. He had intended to let everyone know, but he hadn't actually got to articulate the words. It seemed now that was a moot point. "Yep!" cried Sam as he tossed his head backwards, connecting with the man who was trying to pin his arms by his sides. Briefly he felt a small surge of delight as his head butt was repaid with the sickening sound of a nose breaking.

Dean caught Adam's eye. The ex-marine also showed that he had gotten the message about 'the chosen' but he too was in no position to address the new player. He and Hannah fought frantically as a tidal wave of demonic force crashed over them.

Hannah heard the click that indicated Adam's rifle was now useless and drawing on all of her energy reserves she pushed him sharply away from the squall of demonic force. The demons attacked her from all sides, almost obscuring the sight of her in a layer of writhing oily smoke. She felt their talons biting into her, but every time she swung around, another disembodied arm would attack her unprotected back.

She stepped backwards trying to put some distance between her and her attackers, but the battle had turned her around a little and rather than finding solid floor boards under her feet, she found the uneven fall of the stairs. Hannah tumbled backwards down the stairs, the demons following her down like a swarm of angry hornets.

Adam looked on helplessly, unable to help Hannah as she fought the marauding demons. He looked up to where Sam and Dean still battled hand to hand on the front lawn and he made his decision. Putting one sure hand on the porch banister he hoisted his body over it, dropping down into the garden bed below. He ran quickly to intercept one of Dean's attackers, swiping out at the man's legs and taking him to the ground.

Given a brief reprieve, Dean looked to Hannah. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen her go down, but seeing as she writhed on the ground fending off her phantom attackers made him feel sick with fear. He hurried over to where Sam was engaged in his own battle and unceremoniously pulled the man off his brother, hurling him with such force into Sam's second attacker that the two demonic hosts went down in a tangle or arms and legs.

"Help her." cried Dean desperately, shoving Sam outside of the combat zone.

Sam looked around him, to make sure that Dean could manage all of the 'would be' attackers, then he looked to where the other 'chosen' stood, masked by shadows near the entrance to the Garage. Sam closed his eyes, Ava and Jay had been right about one thing, once you accepted certain things, the talents came to you just like flicking on a switch.

Sam felt the swarming buzz of the non-corporeals in his mind, and with one stern thought, he dismissed them. The shadow by the garage seemed to straighten in the darkness as if its curiosity had somehow been peaked. Sam could feel the confusion in the energy signature. It had assumed that Hannah had been a 'chosen one' but Sam's little command had now changed the game completely.

Sam felt the 'chosen' in the shadows countermand his orders to the non-corporeals, so Sam responded by re issuing the banishment, this time adding in a measure of energy, almost as if her were now yelling the command.

Dazedly, Hannah looked up to see the demonic energy seeming to hover indecisively over her head. At times it looked like it was about to mount the final charge, and then it would draw back. Hannah reached out with her senses and realised, that Sam was now engaged in a battle of will with the other 'chosen'. Her philosophy was that discretion was the better part of valour so she scooted out from under the tumultuous cloud, putting some distance between them.

Hannah followed the trail on energy and saw in the shadows the figure that had now been engaged in the battle. Hannah's senses told her that Sam was infinitely more powerful than the shadowy figure, but he lacked finesse, the understanding and familiarity of powers that made him truly affective when using them and if this battle continued, Hannah was not sure that Sam would be the victor.

She looked around herself seeing Dean fighting alongside Adam. They were outnumbered, but both men being experienced fighters and seemed to be managing the multiple adversaries well. Hannah moved towards Dean, she could see the trucker preparing to charge at him, but in her mind she saw the man mountain flying backwards like a rag doll, and obediently the trucker's body responded to Hannah's psychic command.

Dean turned, giving her a once over. She found the look of concern on his face heart warming, but they had bigger things to worry about at that point in time. She reached around him, almost suggestively and grabbed the hand gun that he almost always carried in the waistband of his jeans. He looked down, a brief moment of surprise coursing through him, then he realised what she had in mind and he nodded approvingly.

Hannah ran across the lawn kneeling in the flower bed beneath the porch. She raised the gun and at the last minute remembered to disengage the safety mechanism, then she fired three quick rounds.

Sam felt the moment of indecision within his adversary and then suddenly, there was no longer a battle going on between them, the other 'chosen' had elected to focus on stopping the bullets rather than fighting over the demons. Given free reign now, Sam ordered them to be gone and with something close to a sigh of relief, the demons disappeared into small clouds of smoke and then nothing.

As Hannah had seen the night before, the bullets from her gun hovered unmoving a mere foot from her gun. She looked at the bullets in bewilderment, the fact that she had seen this before diminished none of her wonderment about it._ 'Keep firing'_ commanded Sam in her mind, and she was aware of him drawing his own gun from the waistband of his jeans.

She pulled the trigger, over and over, hearing the cry of her bullets leaving the gun and hearing the answer in the bullets that Sam fired. With its attention now divided the 'chosen' was unable to stop all of the bullets coming at it. Both Hannah and Sam picked up the incredible sense of regret and then the energy was gone, much like the snuffed out flame of a candle.

Sam didn't even check the body. His senses told him that the 'chosen' was dead and he was beginning to trust them. He turned to where Adam and Dean still fought on the lawn and closing his eyes again, he issued an order for the demons to leave the bodies of their hosts.

He felt the demons acknowledge him slightly, but then they ignored him, they way an adult would dismiss a whinging toddler. Sam issued the order again, this time adding an energetic push behind it, to let them know that he meant business. Again he felt the demonic energy give him a cursory inspection and then ignore him.

Sam's ire was beginning to rise. He had no problem with the non-corporeals, he wasn't sure why he was now having so much more problems with these demons. He issued the command a third time, this time tapping into the energy within him that burnt hot and red and churned like molten lava in his gut. He pushed at them and pushed until he was sure he had their attention.

Adam and Dean were surprised when all of the people they were fighting, stopped and stood stock still on the lawn. They looked between the human hosts and Sam, wondering what to expect next.

Sam was momentarily confused, without a doubt he had now engaged these demons, but he felt them resist his order and he couldn't fathom how they were doing it. Sam looked deep inside himself to that cavernous space that most of the time, was just empty and he found a reserve of power just waiting to be tapped. If these bastards were going to deny him, he would destroy them with everything within him. He embraced the energy letting it flow throughout him and then he directed it at the demons.

Hannah looked at Sam, concern etched on her face. She had felt the increasing spikes of energy coming from him and realised what he was trying to do. What Sam didn't seem to realise is that with all of his power, he could certainly tear these demons out of their human hosts, but the demons would fight him and most likely kill the host before they left it.

Brute strength was not what was needed here, a strategic attack was required, but she had already seen that Sam lacked the dexterity with his power to do this so she walked over to where he stood, took a deep calming breath and placed her hands on Sam's shoulders. The energy pouring through him, nearly made Hannah snatch back her hands, but she calmed herself, cutting away her emotional self and turning into a being of pour intellect.

Sam felt the foreign energy added to his own and he almost rejected it. It flowed with his, and yet it did not, somehow binding his energy in a way he did not like. Hannah wrestled with the power coming from Sam, he was using a huge amount and she was trying to corral it and push it to a certain focus but it was becoming like floodwaters breaking a river bank.

Steadily, Hannah's voice rose, the Latin words from the rites of exorcism forming in her mouth like a familiar litany, she tried channelling all of Sam's energy into those words, but is overflowed, fighting against the rigid ritual having one goal in mind and going after it.

Sam's anger began to grow, it felt like Hannah was trying to dampen the affect of his attack on those demons and that incensed him. He could defeat these bastards, hadn't he already proven that he could earlier tonight. He resented her help, resented they way that she tried to curb him. He would show her exactly what he could do.

Hannah's voice wavered slightly as she struggled to direct the overwhelming power that was surging through Sam. She could sense his intent, but if she just let him go, then all of the people standing ramrod straight on her lawn would be dead. Hannah raised her voice slightly letting the Latin words roll through her.

Adam watched on horrified as the five people all rooted to the spot on the front lawn, began to shake violently, their eyes rolling in the back of their head and their teeth gnashing viciously at the air. The soccer mom convulsed a couple of time, tremors raking her body violently and blasphemies so profane spilling from her mouth, that it mad Adam flinch. She made a strangled gurgling sound and then dropped unconscious to the lawn as the demon inside her released it's hold on the only thing that anchored it in this realm of existence.

Beside her, the young man, with the smashed nose soon followed. Then the young college student let out a blood curdling wail, all of her muscles tensed, twisting her petite body in a vulgar form and then she dropped like a marionette whose strings had just been cut, as her demonic puppeteer was compelled from her body.

The demon in the trucker, held on with tenacious resolve. It liked the power that this body gave it, the fear it had smelled when the big man had walked into a room. I liked the sensation of the meaty hands beating flesh and breaking bones and it was not going to give it up easily. The demon clung to the man's soul even as Hannah's words gave it a hundred tiny wounds. It clung like a desperate toddler to its mother, until Hannah's words and Sam's power finally pried it free. The trucker, whose eyes went from black to a pale blue, sunk to his knees on the lawn wheezing as if he had been choked.

Sam felt a surge of victory as he felt the energies of the demons disappear, but he could still feel the demon that clung inside the businessman. The energy of the demon seemed to almost taunt him, even as it fought desperately to remain in its host. This demon was strong willed and cunning and Sam had the sense that it had put its head down and braced itself for whatever Sam could throw at it.

Sam delved deeper within himself, sensing that there were greater reserves of power than he had ever imagined. His anger burned a rancid red, churning and boiling within him like acid. He thought on his father, on the sacrifices that Dean had made for him and lastly he thought of Jess. Of her senseless agonising death at the hands of a demon that saw her as nothing more than an obstacle and his anger turned from red, to a burning white rage.

Hannah had stopped speaking now unable to manage the energy within Sam and form the words at the same time. She had tried to remain a creature of pure intellect, but the rage and power within Sam frightened her. She was doing her best to prevent him from killing the business man, but she was loosing the fight and of greater concern, the darkness that dwelled within her, realised her attention was divided and it raised its head in interest.

Loosing control of Sam for a moment, Hannah had to address the darkness coming to the surface in her own mind. If she didn't she knew that it would unleash something more terrible than anything they had seen tonight. Satisfied that all her defences would hold, she tried to rein Sam back in, but like a horse that had picked up too much momentum, Sam bolted unrestrained.

Hannah felt Sam's energy swamp her, yet like someone who held onto a livewire she was unable to remove her hands and sever the physical link that connected them. She could feel Sam bludgeoning the demon away from the business man with single minded resolve and even as she felt the demon give ground a scream was building in her throat. This was no longer fear, this was terror.

Hannah heard the business man scream, it sounded like it came from a long distance away. She was also abstractly aware that she was screaming, but somehow her ears wouldn't even register the sound. Pain exploded in her mind as she felt the demon being reefed from the business man, but even with it gone, Sam didn't stop.

The volcano of energy had been tapped and Sam was giving it free rein as his mind was swamped with images of Jess that only served to feed his fury. Hannah felt her consciousness starting to be pulled away from her, towards the maelstrom of energy that was Sam. She felt the Darkness within her crouch as if ready to pounce the moment she was unable to contain it.

Blood ran steadily from her nose and eyes, but that was nothing to the piercing agony within her mind. She felt sure that Sam was going to strip her from herself as easily as he had done with the demon and she despaired in a way that she had never believed possible. Strangely she heard Dean's voice but couldn't make out his words.

All of a sudden, she felt the pull stop as if someone had closed the storm shutters against the hungry storm on the other side. Hannah fell to her knees, heaving mindlessly as she tried to stay conscious. With the darkness in her mind so close to the surface, she couldn't afford to loose consciousness although that was exactly what her ravaged body screamed at her to do.

Her stomach clenched and she heaved again. She was aware of someone holding back her hair as she vomited up bile and the small amount of food that had been in her stomach. She had assumed that it was Dean, but when she looked over her shoulder she was surprised to see Sam on his knees beside her, looking at her with both sorrow and confusion in his eye.

Instinct made her want to retreat from him and protect herself, but she could feel the remorse rolling off him and knew that even though he could have psychically lobotomised her destroying her forever, he hadn't. Something had stopped him and it was the same thing that fed his remorse now.

Hannah rocked back on her haunches, looking out over the lawn where Adam and Dean were checking over the people that were spread over the lawn. The trucker was the fist to find his feet and he walked around taking big wheezing breaths. The college student and the man with the broken nose where still unconscious, but the soccer mom was up and helping Adam and Dean with the business man, who was seizing on the ground.

Sam stood, helping Hannah to her feet, aware that as he took her hand, the flesh on her palm felt strange. He turned her hand over in his own to stare down at them and realised the palms and pads of her fingers were covered with blisters, like her hands had been exposed to radiation or something.

"The minds a funny thing." said Hannah, he voice hollow and croaky as she moved her fingers gingerly "My mind recognised the heat of your anger and my body responded in the only way it understands how."

Looking at the ravaged flesh, Sam wanted to apologise, but it seem like such a paltry gesture. Instead he just looked away, feeling shame overwhelm him. His eyes fell on the slumped figure by the garage and he quickly moved away from Hannah wanting to put some distance between them.

* * *

Two pairs of eyes followed Sam's movements as he went over to the body of the 'chosen'. In to darkness of the scrub at the side of the hose, the two stood, carefully shrouded by the shadows from the trees.

One was tiny, an elfin little thing no more than five or six. She had white blonde hair that had been cut into a neat bob and her skin was so fair that she almost looked ghostly. But her eyes were not that of a child. Her eyes were ancient eyes, eyes used to observing, eyes that smiled at the scene of destruction that had played out before them.

The other was taller but still quite young as humans measured it. When she knelt, she was the same height as the fair haired child, and she looked on with a kind of fascinated awe. She held herself with the awkwardness of one not quite a home in their own skin and yet there was an arrogance of youth about her that the fair haired child found strangely appealing.

"He is very strong." said the tiny creature as she absently swung a stiff jointed teddy bear by its leg.

"I'm stronger" whined the older girl, but her words sounded a lot less like a statement and more like a question.

"Probably" mused the little girl, irritating the older one with her non-committal tone.

"He learns quickly as well." she commented, swinging the bear a little more fervently to punctuate her excitement.

Her older comrade, made a clicking noise of dismissal and rolled her eyes skywards and then deciding that she was sick of hearing how great this 'chosen' was she decided to change the subject. "Can they sense us out here?"

The little girl looked at her companion, with her kneeling; it was one of the few occasions where they could look each other in the eye.

"No" she said almost precociously "I already told you, I shielded us. I just wanted to watch."

"Fine" said the older girl impatiently "We've watched. Can we go now?"

"In a minute" whispered the little girl, settling back onto the bed of leaves beneath her to watch the aftermath of one of the first battles in what promised to be a very long war.

* * *

Hannah had wanted to help the others get everyone inside, but while the mind was willing, the body was far too weak. She waited on the front porch, resting the weight of her body on her forearms and looking out into the darkness. She couldn't shake the feeling that something out there was watching them. She had flared her perception out a couple of times to try and pick up on anything, but it seemed to be blank out there.

She wasn't even quite sure why she felt the way she did, but all she was aware of was the darkness inside of her. It had been so ready to pounce, but now it seemed to be cowering back as if it were afraid to draw attention to itself. For Hannah that was a frightening thought and absently she wondered what was so bad that even the devil feared it.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

**Newport - Rhode Island 10:21pm**

Hannah sat on the edge of her bed feeling sore and sorry for herself. It has taken them a couple of hours to attend to the injuries of the five poor souls who had been dragged into this horrible war. Although that seemed a trivial thing next to trying to explain to them exactly what had happened to them.

The trucker had been exactly what he appeared, a truck driver from Arizona. He turned out to be a gentle giant of a man named Joel Grayson. The last thing that he remembered was stopping at a truck stop in Pennsylvania and then his memory was patchy until he found himself of Hannah's lawn.

Soccer mom was a woman named Helen Marian, who was a paediatrician from New Jersey. She was a calm sensible woman, who in the light of everything that had happened, seemed able to maintain her composure. In some respects it was a godsend that she was there because her medical training had proven invaluable, although Hannah suspected that if they were to ask Helen her sentiments on the issue, she would probably not agree.

One of the first things Helen had to do, was set the nose of Mario Panora, who, when not possessed by a demon, was an accountant for a large financial company in New York. Mario had been a survivor of the World Trade Centre and he had that look to him, where he seemed to understand how to cope with a crisis. He had stoically heard what had happened to them, then crossing himself, he had knelt on the floor and he had begun to pray. Hannah had almost envied the comfort that it seemed to bring him and resisted the temptation to go and kneel beside him.

Emily Lewis had been studying for her midterms in the library at Harvard before she woke up on the lawn surrounded by strangers. Emily had trouble remembering anything that had occurred to her since her last memory in the library, but Hannah suspected that it would probably come back to her in time. Of all of the people, Emily was not taking the news especially well, trying desperately to deny what had happened to them all. She had broken down in tears and Mario had comforted her, speaking to her in the calming voice that one would used to sooth a small animal or a child.

The last of the victims was the business man from Boston who had been the most ravaged by his demon. For the first hour he had slipped in and out of consciousness and Helen had been forced to keep a close eye on him. She had made noise that they needed to get him to a hospital, but quickly rethought that plan as she considered how their story sounded.

As it turned out he was no businessman at all, but a Detective with the Boston Police Department by the name of Patrick Shaughnessy. When he had regained some measure of consciousness, Patrick had been told exactly what the others had, and he had nodded in understanding, his eyes seeming hollow and rimmed with heavy bruising.

When he spoke, his speech started off slurred like he was drunk or had suffered some kind of stroke, but he had managed to articulate to them, that he had been conscious the whole time, but unable to do anything to prevent the beast controlling him.

While wounds were tended, Hannah had made cups of tea and phone calls informing loved ones about the whereabouts of their missing, spouse, partner, daughter or son. She had been evasive on the phone, merely letting the person know that their loved one was alright and giving them a number where they could be reached. For her trouble, she had copped and earful of abuse from the worried party on the other end of the phone, but she had tried to empathise with their distress and not take it too much to heart.

After Adam's wounds had been tended, he had gone outside to deal with the body of the 'chosen'. It had been a silent agreement between Adam, Hannah, Dean and Sam that none of them would discuss the demise of the 'chosen' with their five new guests, and in line with that agreement, Adam had surreptitiously disappeared.

Adam had reappeared a few hours later, with and arm load of military style camp beds and a meaningful look on his face. They had moved Pat, up to the room where Dean had slept the night before and Helen, being concerned for him, had offered to sleep in there with him on one of the camp beds.

They decided to put Emily in the room where Mike had slept, but she had been too frightened to stay by herself, so both Mario and Joel had offered to stay in there with her. It had started out where Emily was in the bed, and the two men had made up camp beds, but Joel had such a difficult time fitting in to his, that Emily had suggested that they swap.

Adam decided that he preferred to sleep downstairs, so that he could keep and eye on the perimeter and as soon as everyone had been bedded down Sam had disappeared into the room where he was staying, needing some breathing space and some time to think.

Hannah looked up as she heard a gentle knock at her door. Dean opened it just a fraction and stuck his head around smiling at her. His hair was damp from the shower and he had a fresh set of clothes on. His clean scent floated into the room and Hannah couldn't help breathing it in deeply. It was familiar and comforting in a way she didn't expect.

"I just wanted to check on you." said Dean, almost apologetically "You've been running around after everyone else all night, but I just realised that no one had looked after you."

"I'm alright." Hannah lied.

She had told the same lie to Adam, when he had tried to get her to slow down. She had told it again to Helen, who had pestered her to have her wounds cleaned. She had even said it to Sam who had told her to take a break. But it was a lie she needed to believe in, so she kept telling it. If she had stopped and allowed any of them to care for her, the enormity of what had happened tonight would be realised and she just didn't have the strength at the moment to deal with it.

Dean raised one eyebrow in amusement. "Bullshit." he said flatly moving into the room and closing the door behind him.

Hannah looked at him in wide eyed surprise "Excuse me?"

"I said that's bullshit" replied Dean walking over to her. "You look like you've been in a fight with a wild animal Doc, nobody is alright after that…nobody" he said meaningfully.

Hannah seemed to sag in the middle, she was so exhausted she didn't really want to have to deal with this right now.

"Dean" she said pleadingly "I just need to sleep."

"Doc" he retorted in a stern voice "If we don't clean up all those cuts, by tomorrow they will be one big infected mess"

"Trust me" he said with a lopsided grin "I speak from experience."

Hannah smiled at him and allowed him to pull her to her feet. As he grabbed hold of her hand, she flinched gasping in pain, drawing Dean's attention to he burnt palms. Some of the blisters had burst, leaving, weeping sores on her palm and the pads of her fingers.

"Doc, how did this…." Dean didn't need to ask. The look of agony on her face and her injuries told him exactly how she had gotten these burns.

He swallowed hard, inspecting every inch of her palms and fingers to assess the extent of the damage. It must have been excruciating, but the Doc wasn't complaining. In fact she hadn't said a word about it all evening. Dean locked eyes with her, in a promise that he was going to look after her.

"Let's get you cleaned up" he said looking towards the bathroom. "You got a first aid kit in there?"

Hannah nodded and he led her, holding gently to her wrist to the bathroom. Dean folded the toilet seat down and sat Hannah upon on it, then rummaged through her medicine cabinet until he had found the first aid kit, antiseptic and burn cream, lining up each on the basin.

Dean looked down at her, she looked tired and forlorn, but there was still an iron will behind her and as dishevelled as she was, she held a quiet air of dignity.

"Ok Doc" said Dean trying to sound clinical "I'm going to need to see the damage, so you'll need to take off your shirt and pants."

Dean saw Hannah baulk for a second, but to he credit, she recovered quickly. She started to try and undo the buttons on her blouse, but her fingers were so badly burnt that they lacked dexterity and fine motor function. Dean watched her fumble with it twice; her teeth gritted as pain shot through her, until he grabbed her wrists, made her stand and started in on the buttons himself.

Dean had done this dozens of times with other women, but somehow doing it now to the Doc made him nervous. His palms sweated a little and he deliberately didn't make eye contact with her, focusing on the job at hand. Once he had undone all of the buttons, Dean slipped the shirt from Hannah's shoulders.

He had known that she had been cut up pretty badly, but her tattered shirt had hidden the full extent of the damage. Her back and shoulders look liked she had been flayed and there were scratches all along her arms, defensive wounds most likely. She had protected her face and chest reasonable well, but Dean could see one long wound, that had sliced through the lacey fabric of her bra.

Dean instructed Hannah to hold on to he shoulders as he undid her pants and slipped them from her hips. This revealed other long scratches, but the majority seemed to have been on her upper body.

Under different circumstances, Dean may have found removing the Doc's clothes a real turn on, but now all he saw where the long welts and scratches across her body, and his body responded with sympathetic pain.

Dean spread a towel on the toilet seat and had Hannah sit down again, this time facing away from him. He filled the basin up with warm water and antiseptic and dipped one of her cotton makeup pads into it. With infinite care he touched the cotton to her wound, but he still heard her sharp intake of breath as the antiseptic bit into the open flesh.

Watching the pain that this was causing, Dean decided that the best thing to do was get it done quickly, kind of like the band-aid philosophy. So he increased his pace, trying to tune out the sharp intakes of breath and the occasional tension in the Doc's body. He tried working around her white lacey bra, but it got to the point where it was just and in impediment he didn't need, so without preamble, he passed Hannah a towel for modesty, then undid the catch before she could argue.

He cleaned all the wounds on her back, and with a kind of self imposed clinical detachment, he studied the Doc's body. Her skin appeared to be much like the skin on her face, soft and velvety to the touch. There were no tan lines anywhere on her, the creamy colour of her skin being even all over. She was bustier that he had imagined, her clothes tending to play down the swell of her breasts and her waist was narrow flaring out into lush rounded curves at her hip.

Once her back was finished, Dean made her stand so he could clean the long gashes on her legs, then he made her sit again, this time facing him. He knelt in front of her, pulling one arm away from where she clutched the bath towel to her chest, he began to clean the wounds on it. He started gently with her hands and then he worked his way down to her shoulders. He deliberately avoided making eye contact with her, he could feel how much Hannah hated being seen to be this vulnerable, so he tried to minimise her discomfort by not giving her misplaced sympathy.

Then he allowed her to change the grip on her towel and pulled out the other arm to repeat the process. The whole time, Dean chattered on, not consciously speaking, but anecdotes about his childhood and the way their father had tended his wounds seemed to bypass his brain and just fall from his lips. He had the sense that Hannah was smiling, but he didn't look up to see, he just continued on with his job.

Finally he cleaned the cut along her breast, dutifully ignoring the soft flesh that he touched and he finished with the deep gash that had been hidden in her hairline, he hadn't seen it earlier, but closer inspection had revealed it. Her wounds looked angry and red, but at least he knew that they were all clean. Luckily none of them were deep enough to warrant stiches, but they would still be sore for days.

Finally, Dean rubbed burn cream on Hannah's hands, taking extra care to be gentle. He bound them with burn dressing and gauze from the first aid kit, wrapping her hands like she was a mummy from some bad 50's monster movie.

Leading her out into the bedroom, Dean helped Hannah into a soft cotton night dress. He was gifted briefly with a flash of her soft round breasts as she let the bath towel drop away, and for the first time that evening, his groin stirred to life. Her breasts were beautiful, large and firm covered in velvety skin with rose coloured nipples.

Dean bent down and picked up the bath towel folding it and returning it to the bathroom. The action gave him something to distract himself and in the privacy of the bathroom, he put the heel of his hand on his betraying body part, thinking of baseball and car specifications.

When he returned to the bedroom, he saw that Hannah had crawled into bed and she was watching him with fatigued eyes.

"I notice that you gave up your room." said Hannah her voice weary "Where were you planning on sleeping?"

Dean cocked his eyebrow, somewhat surprised by the question.

"To be honest I hadn't thought about it." he said "I guess I'll just set up one of those camp beds in Sam's room of something."

Hannah watched him through slowly blinking eyes "Don't sleep on a camp bed, when you don't have to. This bed is big enough for both of us and I don't think I snore."

Dean was slightly taken back by her offer, but he was also grateful, his body was sore and the prospect of sleeping on a camp bed was singularly unappealing.

"Are you sure?" he asked, wanting to make certain Hannah was happy about this arrangement and not just being polite.

"To be honest" she said her eyelids falling heavily over her eyes "I'd be grateful for the company."

Dean smiled at her, not one of his cocky grins, but a smile of genuine appreciation. It cost her to say that to him, but it was honest and he felt slightly humbled by that. He walked around the other side of the bed, pulled his boots and socks off, slipped his shirt from his shoulders and stretched out next to her in just his jeans and t-shirt.

Normally he would have slept in his boxers, but it didn't seem quite right to do that. He didn't get under the covers with her for the same reason, instead choosing to just lie on top of the covers feeling her next to him on the bed. Hannah touched the base of her lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and while she stayed lying on her side, she was conscious of Dean's warmth emanating behind her, and her body moved towards it.

Exhaustion pulled Hannah quickly into sleep, but Dean stayed awake for a little while, listening to the sound of the ocean outside. It lulled him and soothed him, despite the events of the day, and he understood, with the kind of understanding that starts in the bones, why Hannah loved this place so much.

* * *

Sam lay stretched out on the bed. While he could feel the fatigue in his body, his mind whirred like an industrial machine, picking up the experiences that he had throughout the day, pushing them about in his head and them returning them to their starting position, where the whole cycle started again.

He wanted to sleep and dream of his mother, but sleep seemed unlikely. He felt so alone, disconnected from everyone around him. He had walked among them and talked with everyone, putting the right amount of sympathy into his voice, but to be honest he felt nothing for them. He wanted to, he just didn't. The only thing that sparked anything next to a genuine emotion was the delight he had experienced in increasing his knowledge about his gifts.

He thought back over his new found knowledge, going over it to galvanise it in his memory. Absently he wondered if Asbeel had been among the demons that he had banished. They had not been able to identify the demon, and Sam hoped that Asbeel had been among them, but he seriously doubted it. His research had presented Asbeel as being much more astute and while the attack this evening had been harsh, it was hardly military genius.

It felt like a test, the increasing pressure on a flexed muscle just to see how much it could take, even the idea that they were after the grimoires seemed to be pretence. The 'chosen' could have easily tried to get into the house through the garage while they were fighting, but he hadn't. He had watched on, orchestrating things from the side line as if he truly had not known what the true objective was.

Sam rolled over trying to get comfortable in the bed. He listened to the sound of the ocean and the cry of gulls on some distant outcropping of land. Tomorrow he would convince Dean to leave. He wanted to be away from this place. In the back of his mind he could still feel Hannah's energy smothering and channelling his. He understood why she felt she needed to do it, but that she could do it made him hate her just a little and Sam had only known hate once before…he had hated the yellow eyed demon.

* * *

Dean woke up to a strange buzzing sound. He looked around groggily, finding himself alone in the bed, with a blanket draped over him. Again he felt the insistent buzzing a realised it was the cell phone he hadn't taken from his pocket, before he had gone to sleep.

Dean pulled the phone out, looking down at the small display to see Bobby's name flashing urgently at him.

"Bobby." he said, trying to shake the sleep from his voice.

"So you're still in the land of the living." said the gruff voice on the other end of the line.

"For now" Dean replied rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

He related to Bobby what had happened the previous day, and in kind Bobby updated him on what he and Ellen had been working on. The issue seemed to be that there were a huge number of supernatural events occurring and Bobby and Ellen just couldn't be in all the places that they needed to be.

Throughout the conversation it became increasingly apparent to Dean that they would have to leave and soon. Dean hated the idea of leaving the grimoires unprotected, so he decided he would have to discuss options with Adam before he left. It was going to take them a couple of days to get back to Wyoming and pick up the Impala and Bobby had told him of a confirmed possession in Montana that neither he nor Ellen could assist with.

Dean bid farewell to the older hunter promising to keep in touch then snapped the phone shut with finality and went to the bathroom to relieve his aching bladder. Dean pulled on his boots, but left his shirt off, the morning was warm enough without it and he was eager to talk to Sam, Adam and Hannah. He wasn't looking forward to talking to Hannah. For some reason it felt like he was leaving her behind to clean up the mess and he just didn't feel right about it. Unfortunately he and Sam just did not have the luxury of staying in any one place too long.

Dean went out and knocked on the door of Sam's room. Sam opened it and looked out. He was still wet from the shower and a towel hugged his waste.

"We need to go" Dean said looking meaningfully at his brother "today."

A brief look of surprise crossed Sam's features, but he simply nodded.

"I'll be ready" he said quietly, then closed the door on his brother.

Dean trotted down the stairs and found Adam in the kitchen making coffee. The old Marine offered Dean a mug that he gratefully accepted. Adam was a frank man who required no preamble so Dean decided to hit him with the facts straight up.

"Sam and I have to leave" he said sliding onto one of the stools by the breakfast counter. "I've been told that there is trouble in Montana and Sam and I are the only available hunters to deal with it."

Adam fixed him with a steely look, it held no hostility, but it was calculating. "I understand" he said finally and Dean knew with certainty that he did.

"We need to find some more ways to protect the grimoires. I think the immediate threat is over, but I would bet money on the fact that one of those dirty bastard will make another try for them."

Adam nodded as Dean spoke "I've been thinking about that myself" he said in his whiskey and cigarettes voice. "There are a couple of things we can do to improve the security of the property and I also know of a group of ex-marines who run a private security firm. I thought about bringing them in."

Adam held Dean's eye with a promise that he would do anything that was required now that he understood the stakes. "They're good men. I trained a few of them and I trust them."

Dean smiled at the older man as if that were not even in question. "What would you tell them?"

Adam smiled ruefully at Dean taking a sip of his coffee "I hadn't quite worked that one out yet, but I'll think of something."

"Just remember" Dean said "If they get involved this is like the Mafia – once in…never out."

"I'll make sure that they make an educated choice" said Adam his voice emphatic.

Dean smiled at the marine. He hadn't known the man for very long, but he had genuine affection for the old guy and after seeing him in action last night, he had faith that he could keep Hannah and the grimoires safe. Thinking of Hannah made him feel slightly sick and he looked around hoping to spot her.

"Any idea where the Doc might be?"

Adam looked at him over the edge of his mug "Down in her study I expect."

"Thanks" said Dean slipping off the stool and heading for the stairs, the mug nursed loosely in his hand.

Dean trotted down the stairs and crossed the large entertaining area over to Doc's study. He walked on quiet feet as he neared it, looking tentatively through the door. Hannah sat at the piano in much the same way as he had found her yesterday, but the instrument lay silent. She saw Dean watching her from the door and smiled at him, welcoming yet somehow sad.

"I'm a creature of habit." she said almost apologetically "When I'm home I usually practice for an hour in the morning once I get up. This morning I just found myself sitting here, even though I can't practice." As if to prove the point she held up the two bandage hands that Dean had dressed the night before.

"I didn't realise how much I'd miss it." she said wistfully.

"You'll be back at it in no time Doc." Dean said but his enthusiasm felt false to him, so he could only imagine what she heard.

She smiled and beckoned for him to join her on the piano stool. "What's on your mind Dean?" she said gently resting her bandaged fingers on the black and ivory keys.

Dean wasn't surprised that she had sensed that something was on his mind. He had been around her enough to start getting used to her intuition. He didn't know quite what to say, so staying true to his philosophy; he tried to make it quite like a band aid.

"Sam and I have to leave." he paused for a moment trying to read her reaction "Today."

Hannah smiled keeping her eyes on her fingers. "I had an inkling." she said quietly, her voice even.

"I thought you'd be angry." said Dean in surprise watching her closely.

Her eyes turned to his in genuine amusement and she smiled at him to pacify his fears. "Why would you think that? I always knew that you wouldn't be able to stay."

Dean squirmed under her scrutiny "I don't know?" he said honestly "I kind of feel bad leaving you with a house full of people and vault full of grimoires."

Hannah chucked, deep in her throat. It was a warm sound and eased the ache that had started to grow in the middle of his chest.

"Don't worry about that." she said "Adam can help me and I have a feeling that some of those people upstairs, their part in this hasn't quite finished either."

Dean watched Hannah as she spoke, her eyes flashed quicksilver and she seemed to be looking at some far away point like she could see some strange thing on the horizon that he couldn't possibly fathom. She shook her head slightly as if to dismiss a strange imagining and then returned her gaze to his.

"I've called in a favour." she said her rich voice curling around Dean like smoke "Although I'm not sure that you are going to thank me for it." There was a hint of humour in her eyes and Dean cocked an eyebrow in intrigue.

"I know a family down the road. I wrote a recommendation for their daughter to get into Harvard and they owed me one. Their private jet is waiting for you at the airport whenever you need it. It'll fly you back to Wyoming"

Dean swallowed hard, while the prospect of flying didn't exactly fill him with joy, it would get them back in the game all the faster.

"I know you're probably eager to get back to Errol." said Hannah with a smile that lifted her full lip in mischief.

"Wait a minute, whose Er…" realisation came crashing down on Dean and he sat up indignantly. "Errol! You named my car Errol?"

Hannah's smile broadened. "It's only reasonable, it's sleek dark and handsome just like Errol Flynn; a true classic."

Dean baulked at her explanation "I'm not calling my car Errol" he stated emphatically.

"You" said Hannah with gentle mocking in her voice "don't have to."

Dean looked at her, trying to keep the irritation on his face, but failing miserably as her contagious humour took hold.

"Will you fly back with us?" he said, before he had even registered that he was speaking.

"No." Hannah said quietly.

"What will you do about Charlotte?" Dean asked draining the remainder of his coffee from its cup.

"I've already arranged for someone to drive her home. Besides" she said studying her hands, "I'd be a bit useless in that regard at the moment."

Dean watched Hannah closely. Her words had not been spoken in self pity, but more a factual account. She seemed to accept the fact that she was beaten up and it didn't seem to bother her, but still Dean felt something in her, dwelling just beneath surface. It was cleverly masked, but there none the less.

"When do you need to leave?" she asked, her eyes betraying her disappointment while her words were spoken matter-of-factly.

Dean understood now what he felt from the Doc. While Hannah had realised that they had to leave and had accepted the need as fact, it didn't mean that she was particularly happy about it, and somewhere deep in his chest, Dean felt a heat unfurl at the knowledge.

"I need to grab a shower" he said working hard to keep the regret from his voice "Then we'll probably hit the road."

Hannah smiled, raising herself off the piano stool "Well I'll go and start on some breakfast so you don't leave on an empty stomach."

Dean stood also "Will you be able to manage that with your hands?"

Hannah turned on Dean with a smile so brilliant it that nearly robbed him of breath "I wasn't going to make it, I was just going to bark a few orders at Adam and find out what else he had learnt from Martha."

Dean returned her smile and shook his head slightly as he followed her out of the room.

* * *

Breakfast had been a strange strained affair. Sam had been introverted and sullen, giving Hannah a wide berth. Adam had fussed over Hannah insisting on cutting up her food for her, although Hannah had put her foot down when he wanted to feed her the neatly segmented hotcakes.

Dean had watched them all and felt a strange melancholy settle on him. He would miss this place, in spite of the fact that he had only been here a day or two. Once breakfast was finished, Adam and Hannah had walked the brothers to the truck. Adam had shaken both their hands and then taken two very deliberate steps back.

Hannah had said farewell to Sam, it was a formal gesture where both seemed to keep their distance. And as Sam walked around the truck to get in the passenger's seat, Dean had stood face to face with Hannah unsure of what to do or say. Thankfully Hannah had made the discussion for him, reaching out and pulling him in a close embrace.

He had felt her lips on his cheek and then her words in her in his ear, spoken for him and him alone.

"Take care of yourself" she had whispered, he breath hot against his neck "Let us know how you're doing from time to time ok."

"I'll stay in touch." Dean had promised, then he had released her from the embrace and climbed into the truck.

As he pulled down the driveway and over the ward, he had looked back in the rear-view mirror to see that Hannah hadn't moved. She didn't wave of anything, she just stood, tall and proud, watching them leave. She was beautiful in her solitary and Dean would keep the image with him for a long time to come.

* * *

THE END - The War Stories Saga will continue soon with "Something Wicked This Way Comes"...Thanks for reading. 


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